Bound By Love
by aendowyn
Summary: A burglary happens at STAR Labs the day of the particle accelerator is supposed to open. A CSI and a Bioengineer come together to find out who is to blame, which leads to a most unexpected start to their adventure
1. Burglary

Hello Everyone, I;m a novice author who decided a while back to write a fanfic, mostly for himself. At the request of one of my friends who has already read some of it, i decided to publish it here, for others people to enjoy. This will be my first time publishing anything here. I will be making a dump of about 20 chapters that have already been completed in the next few days. Feel free to comment and / or leave reviews. Constructive criticism is always appreciated and i hope you all enjoy it as much as i enjoyed writing it. Have fun.

As always, I do not own any characters.

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It was a bright and sunny morning when Caitlin Snow came into work. After her usual morning routine and drive through the city, she approached STAR Labs. To her surprise, the parking lot in front of the large structure was full of police cars and there were many cops on the scene. Parking her car in the reserved parking space as she had done ever since she came here from Coast City, the doctor got out and headed toward the large doors, which were the main entrance to the large building.

Approaching the scene, Caitlin saw two people with badges talking and a strange figure, which was on its knees on the ground examining something. She tried to make it out from afar, it seemed to be a man, but she could not be sure, so she went over to where the three people were discussing. She wanted to see more, but the scene was cordoned off with yellow tape and the police officers would not let her enter.

 **"Good morning, Dr. Snow"** a voice came from within the multitude of cops, being partly hidden by the two people that had badges on their belts. She concluded in her mind that they were detectives that came to investigate.

 **"Good morning, Dr. Wells"** she responded **"What happened here? Why are the police at the lab so early in the morning?"**

 **"We have had a break in last night. Someone managed to make off with the nanite power cell we were developing, the prototype of which was to be unveiled this week, after the particle accelerator opening. We have yet to determine if there was something else stolen, but I have Mr. Ramon on that as we speak, he is going through the inventory bit by bit, to determine if there is something else missing from that floor"** he responded. **"Mr. Ramon and I have been here since early this morning when I discovered the break in. For some reason our alarm system was disabled"**

 **"Dr. Wells, why haven't you called me? I could have come and helped"** she said with a bit of Ire in her voice.

 **"There was no need. We started immediately to account for anything that might have disappeared. The police was on the scene a few minutes later cutting off any outside interference so that the crime scene would be preserved for collection of evidence"** He said quite calmly **"Even now, the only way you`re getting in there is by wearing protective gear so that you don't contaminate the crime scene, which seems obvious, if we actually want to find anything useful"**

 **"But still…"** she wanted to say something, but wells cut her off.

 **"Enough about that, I made a judgement call so we can get this moving along as fast as we can. I do not want their investigation to hinder the opening of the particle accelerator. This is still a think tank and the things we develop here are highly sophisticated and in some cases very dangerous. Let's be thankful they didn't come with a military detachment, two SWAT teams, the bomb squad, the firefighters and state troopers. If that would have happened and the CCPD would have treated this as an attack and not just a simple robbery, then we would have had no chance of starting the accelerator today"** He voiced. Somehow, Caitlin detected something in his voice, as if he was happy that this hadn't turned into a large shit show. He had planned this opening for a long time and having this happen right now would have been a real problem. In her mind she noted that Wells was acting strange, even more so than usual. The two detectives approached slowly **"Gentlemen, this is Dr. Caitlin Snow. She is one of my employees here at STAR labs. Her main field of expertise is bio engineering, she has also done molecular biology, genetics and hematology"**

 **"Detective Joe West"** the taller black man spoke **"and this is my partner Eddie Thawne"** motioning toward the other man.

 **"Glad to meet the both of you"** she replied gracefully **"Do you know exactly what happened here?"**

 **"We have an idea, last night one, maybe two suspects broke in the front doors and headed toward one of the labs "Joe stated bluntly**

 **"Are you sure? Those doors are reinforced Titanium allow. They are at this point made from the strongest material found on this earth"** she looked at the doors being split wide open as if they had been crushed **"The sheer force it would require to break them is … impossible"** she continues looking in disbelief at the pile of mangled steel and girders that were once the bunker doors at the main entrance.

 **"That is not something that we have an answer to at this time"** Joe responded truthfully looking at his partner.

 **"Well, we do have something at least"** The figure that was on the ground on its knees, and from what she had managed to see was searching the area for evidence, stood up and turned back toward the group, exiting the cordoned off area **"I found these tire tracks. 12-inch base with an asymmetrical tread. The only car that has that exact tire is a Shelby GT 500. The super wide tire is made specifically to transfer the power to the ground while offering the maximum amount of traction. I have yet to determine if the man that broke through those"** he pointed at the doors **"is the one that had the car, or if he just did his job and his partner was waiting for him, but that will be assessed in time"** He continued.

Caitlin found herself trapped in the man's green gaze. It was like somehow she had been paralyzed. She could not take his eyes of him, the goofy smile and the weird frizzy hair, which looked unkempt, but in reality was nothing of the sort. She kept her eyes peeled on the way he studied the crime scene and took pictures and sketches. The attention to every minute detail he scribbled and sketched was astonishing even for her. Being a scientist, attention to detail was nothing she was a stranger to, but nothing to this degree.

On the other side of this strange exchange, Barry found himself attentively examining the delicate features of the woman in front of him. Something he hadn't done since the time he used to dream about Iris.

 **"I'm sorry; I guess we haven't been introduced. I'm Barry, Allen"** he said extending a hand out to her and to Dr. Wells. They both shook it sternly. Caitlin made a confused face. The name triggered a memory of her helping a boy off the ground when she was younger. Someone she saw once after that when she was out shopping with her mother before moving back from Central City to Coast City after her father died. She thought about asking but decided she would look a bit weird doing that to a person that she had just met so she let it go.

 **"Harrison Wells"** the man presented himself

 **"I`m a big fan of your work, Dr. Wells"** Barry added with a large smile

 **"Caitlin Snow"** the beautiful woman responded, a cold but courteous tone in her voice. Barry seemed to remember someone with that name from a very long time ago, but the image was wildly different, the girl he met back then had short hair, braces and large glasses. He decided to let it go for now. The woman in front of him looked nothing like the girl he remembered helping him off the sidewalk after some bullies had beaten him.

 **"He's the CSI responsible for collecting evidence in this case"** Joe added **"So what do you have, Barry?"**

 **"Beside what I have already got from the ground, the thieves used some sort of directed concussive thermite like device on the door"** he pointed at the scoring on the doors. **"See here?"** He asked **"the metal looks like it has been baked, it's so brittle that you can break it off with your hand"** he took off a piece of the blown off door crumpling it like a piece of paper.

 **"Mr. Allen, you do realize that the melting point of the alloy we use here is around…"** Caitlin interjected but the man she was addressing cut her off.

 **"3500 degrees, yes I know. That is the standard melting point of the titanium iridium compressed alloy used in these doors, but it does not seem that all of it was melted… the part that's brittle looks like the cohesiveness of the atomic bonds of the material was altered giving it the brittle aspect. That is a suspicion however because I do not know something that would produce such an effect"** he finished her sentence

 **"How do you know what kind of alloy is this? We've never made the formula public"** Caitlin looked genuinely surprised

 **"Oh. That's easy, I knew it was some sort of titanium composite, but when I saw the piece I picked up was way heavier than it should be and then I realized it had to be something else in the alloy. The second densest element I know is Iridium, which is also used to further increase durability and strength of other materials when put in an alloy. The striations in the material clearly indicate it was compressed and layered to obtain the maximum amount of resistance. Put all that together and you can get the melting point out quite easily"** Barry cheerfully explained his findings.

Caitlin was positively stunned. A simple CSI managed to find the components and the fabrication process of their strongest alloy in the span of a couple of minutes, by simply relying on his observation skills and knowledge of chemistry **" _Something tells me there's more to this guy than meets the eye. He's extremely smart to be able to come up with such a detailed analysis in such a short time, starting from a very small amount of data"_** She told herself, a faint smile dawning on her face.

 **"I do hope you will keep that to yourself, Mr. Allen"** Dr. Wells interjected **"The patent is still in the works and we do not want someone else to steal our technology or our fabrication methods"**

 **"Not a problem, I was just stating what I found for the team, your secret composite and its fabrication cycle are safe with me"** Barry responded.

 **"So you`re saying this explosive was custom made?"** Joe looked at him strangely

 **"Yes Joe. The components required would be very hard to find, some of them can only be found in two places in the city. However, as I have stated before, I do not know what would cause the disruption of the atomic bonds. In addition, I would postulate that the person that made the explosive already knew the composition of the doors. Without that information, the device that was used could have simply fizzled and the heat that it put off could simply not have damaged the door at all"** He handed Joe a notebook page with the elements he thought might be in the bomb's make up.

Caitlin took a glance at the page and she was surprised again. Barry had successfully written down all the combinations she could think of when creating something with that punching power, which were not few. She saw the places jotted down near the elements. STAR Labs, Mercury Labs, plus a few other companies that had headquarters in other cities and at the bottom of the page there was a note that had been circled **"Inside job?"** Caitlin found herself repeating those same words aloud.

 **"You mean … this could be an inside job?"** she stated rather distraught by the green gaze of the CSI in front of her.

 **"Well it would make sense"** Joe responded with his eyes on the paper **"According to our CSI here, most of the chemicals can either be found here or at Mercury, if we limit ourselves to materials that are local. However, we will expand our investigation to the other sites that Barry has jotted down, at least find out if they have some components missing"**

 **"This could be a problem,"** Harrison Wells interjected in the conversation **"We need to keep this under wraps and double the security here at the labs. We need to make sure that the particle accelerator goes online without trouble"** He thought to himself for a while then continued **"Dr. Snow, as of now, you are our liaison with the CCPD. Give the detectives and Mr. Allen all the support you can. Until further notice, consider this a matter of extreme urgency"**

 **"But Dr. Wells, I was to be here at the opening of the accelerator tonight"** She responded with a bit of disappointment in her voice

 **"Caitlin, if we don't manage to find the thieves and since they breached our security once already, the accelerator might be attacked or worse. We need to make sure whoever did this is behind bars or at least identify them so they cannot be anywhere near STAR when we get the particle accelerator online. Having a security breach with an experiment so delicate in the works is not something that I find acceptable"** Wells cut her off with a grave voice.

 **"I understand. I will try to provide as much help as I can. I hope that we can find out more when Mr. Allen sweeps the inside of the labs"** Caitlin retorted realizing the danger the grand opening was in. While thinking about the probability of things going wrong, she could not manage to keep her eyes off the young CSI that seemed to be way smarter than he was letting on **" _What the hell are you doing, Caitlin?"_** She asked herself. She was a bit annoyed at the fact that because of this event she might miss the event that she had been preparing to be a part of ever since she came to STAR and of which she was a big part in helping build. The entire situation was a bit of a letdown for our dear doctor, at the realization that she might have to miss everything. However, her own feelings didn't matter, if that same event wouldn't happen or was met with something catastrophic because of an outside intrusion. Putting her feelings aside she decided to help o the best of her abilities, even if she wasn't to be there, at least Ronnie would be, so he could see his dream come to fruition along with the other slew of people that worked on the grand opening.

While she was talking to Dr. Wells, Barry Allen scoured the crime scene for other clues, but for some reason his gaze kept going back to the beautiful chestnut brown haired woman like she was magnetic. Her long locks framed her delicate features beautifully. The black pencil skirt showed off her slender legs and the dark blue coat she was wearing contrasted with her skin tone in a way he could have never thought possible. However, he looked and searched for evidence, his eyes kept going back to her. He almost missed a black chip of paint that was straying in one of the tire treads. He admonished himself **_"Barry Allen, don't screw this up because you aren't looking for evidence, but instead you`re looking at her"._** Her demeanor and way of talking was cold and professional, but that would be the case for a scientist, or for a person who has had a lot of disappointment in her life. He knew this well. For the time he had been fawning over Iris, some of his friends did indeed tell him that he began to get colder. Maybe that was the case for her as well; however, he rather guessed that this would probably be the only time when he would be working with her, unless STAR was hit again. Strangely enough, thinking about it, he had a shadow of a wish in his mind that the labs get pilfered a few more times, just so he could get to know the beautiful doctor better. He smiled, but it was forced. His ethics of work prevented him from actually wanting that, what he had thought right about now would be something that would have never even been an issue in his mind earlier on. The idea that more crimes should happen just so he could see her was nothing more of a joke, yet he thought about it with absolute seriousness. It was a strange occurrence to him. He had worked most of his adult life to put people in prison and keeping stuff like this from happening and yet, here he was, wishing, quite seriously, that the Labs would get robbed again, just so he could see the beautiful woman and get a chance to work with her again. He admonished himself for even thinking something like that, although that idea stayed firm in his mind, somewhere in the deepest recesses like an itch that needed to be scratched and he could not do it. He didn't want this to be the first and last time he had contact with the woman in front of him. His outside search yielded nothing more and when he stood up he caught her looking at him intently and flashed her a gleeful smile.

 **"I'll be taking Mr. Allen the whole way to the lab that was broken into. Maybe there is more evidence somewhere"** Caitlin told the group as she was preparing to go inside, trying to avoid as best she could the debris from the door. The two made sure to have protective gear so that they do not contaminate the scene. Barry usually would do that himself, but the building was so large that he welcomed the help.

 **"And we will start to track down the chemicals Barry gave us to see if we can come up with a lead"** Joe added to that statement before him and Eddie started to walk back to the car.

 **"So Mr. Allen, did you find anything else out here?"** Caitlin addressed the CSI what was black lighting the floor in search for minute traces of blood.

 **"Call me Barry, Mr. Allen … yeah ... that's my dad"** he smirked

 **"All right, then you can call me Caitlin"** she replied before he had a chance to continue

 **"I haven't really found anything else that might lead to our thieves. Can you walk me back to the lab that was broken into? I need to check along the way for material evidence. I hope that our thieves were not as careful as they seemed"** the CSI asked her politely.

 **"My sentiments exactly. Come on"** Caitlin motioned for Barry to follow her. The man did so without even thinking twice, it was as if her demeanor was almost commanding enough to tell him to do what she asked.

The Lab was a large circular building built on top the particle accelerator that was underneath. The building was designed with a new age in mind, cutting edge science implied as well from holograms to pin sized 360 degree cameras that could render the video they took in a circle around the viewer, something that was a first and had been developed here at the labs for a long while, just never released to the public.

 **The large halls that lead to different sections of the laboratory seemed to have been designed with containment in mind, Barry thought at first glance. All of them had blast doors at either end, some of them even having decontamination areas, which were required before entering the next section. He noticed the bands on the floor could light up if needed. _"Must be for new people, this building is huge, wouldn't be a surprise if people can actually get lost in here"_** he thought to himself. The large windows that were on the side were letting the light go through, but Barry noticed that the color spectrum was a bit shifted. He attributed that to the fact that the glass could be either tinted or have filters in order to make the environment friendlier. He couldn't find at this point another reason for that to happen.

 **"How many days do you keep security footage before deleting it, Caitlin?"** Barry asked while they were walking. He had an idea that might help him not spend the next two weeks combing every nook and cranny of the almost 150-meter corridor that lead to the lab that was broken into with every kind of light that he could think of. While they were walking, his mind was taking in the grandeur of the labs. The building looked huge form outside, but from the inside, the view was largely different, there were corridors and labs on either side, coupled with security doors to some areas and security checkpoints in others.

 **"We don't delete security footage here, Barry. All the video from the opening of STAR Labs was digitized and left in the master computer, which means we can access even stuff that is a few years old whenever we want"** Caitlin replied with a small smile on her face. That action in itself was weird to her. She never smiled to anyone, fact that Cisco, her best friend at the time had noticed and was constantly annoying her about.

 **"How the hell does your master computer has that much storage to keep all the video from the last 3 years alone with all the high tech cameras around?"** Barry looked stupefied at her reply

 **"We just do, maybe Cisco can tell you about that when and if you get the clearance for it"** the doctor replied

 **"Who's Cisco?"** Barry asked shortly thereafter

 **"That would be me, Francisco Ramon, mechanical engineering genius, sometimes master hacker and all around nice guy" Barry saw a figure coming toward them "Call me Cisco, if I hear Francisco out of you, I'm going to disintegrate you"**

Cisco Ramon was shorter than Barry was, with long wavy hair to his shoulders and a large smile that seemed to brighten up the space they were in when he entered it. The impression Barry had was of immediate comfort with him in the room, also he noticed Caitlin relaxed even though they were investigating a robbery. He concluded by his observations that the two must have been good friends.

 **"Hi, I'm Barry Allen. Just call me Barry. Can you pull up the security footage of the lab for last night?"**

 **"Yeah, sure man, what time frame and which footage?"** the joyful man asked immediately.

 **"From 2 AM to 4 AM. Everything that you can give me from the corridor that leaves this lab all the way to the entrance"** The CSI voiced. In a normal case, those times would, in almost all cases, yield nothing; the city was almost inert between 12 and 3 AM, so anything would be simply not there. He hoped this would not be the case here, since Caitlin told him that they do not delete security footage. Nonetheless, Barry was prepared in case nothing showed up, seeing it in many other instances. Cisco started to pull up the requested footage on his tablet while Barry started his analysis of the lab.

Everything was surprisingly tidy. Nothing else had been touched except the containment unit where the power cell had been kept. The containment unit itself had no burn marks, no scorching, no sign of damage and it looked like it was actually opened with the appropriate code. This smelled more and more of an inside job as the evidence suggested.

 **"Hey Barry, could you come over here for a minute?"** Caitlin chimed into the conversation

 **"Yeah, what's up?"** he walked toward her casually

 **"I'm pretty sure these chemicals have no place in this lab"** she pointed to three flasks of different colors that were on the second table in the room very near to the empty storage device.

As he looked to the glass containers, he saw something falling from the neck of the flask into the liquid inside as Caitlin picked it up. It was a trap. He recognized the small piece of material in the clear ball that was about to make contact with the water. It was sodium, quite a big piece for a small flask.

 **"Trap. Watch out!"** He yelled as he took the flask out of Caitlin's hand and threw it outside the lab into the corridor where it would be nowhere near any sort of chemicals that could produce a larger explosion. Without thinking, he grabbed Caitlin and shielded her with his body putting his hands around her. After a few seconds a large thud could be hear and the door to the lab was full with small glass shards.

 **"What the hell just happened?!"** Cisco yelled covering himself with his tablet

 **"It was a trap, left by whoever robbed this place"** he stated coldly **"Water with sodium. It produces a small explosion not really harmful, but those glass shards …"**

 **"Could have done enough damage. Thanks, Barry" Caitlin continued his sentence, feeling a bit uncomfortable with him covering her, but not saying anything because she realized that he only wanted to protect her. She got out of his embrace and went to examine the other flasks that were on the table "This trap was well designed"** She took the second flask and saw that it was pressurized with a clear white powder in it with yellow bevels. **"This is phosphorous. If that flask would have exploded and had broken the seal on this one while providing the heat of an explosion …"**

 **"It would have magnified it enough to create an event that would probably have killed whoever is in this room. And you are welcome, Caitlin"** Barry continued.

 **"Very good, Barry. I see you know your chemistry"** She smiled at him, which hid a little bit of admiration.

 **"There must be some sort of evidence in this room. That trap was designed to burn this room, thus cleaning it of any sort of traces left behind. Also providing enough genetic material from the people that were close enough to the blast to make finding other samples of DNA completely pointless"** Barry voiced his thoughts without thinking.

He took out his black light and started scanning every little flask every little corner of the room. Caitlin watched him do his work, the meticulousness and the borderline amazing attention to detail was something she was starting to like in the young CSI. For some people going over evidence was … boring, and they would finish excessively fast not really finding anything, but that was definitely not his way of doing things.

 **"Eureka"** Barry smiled, making Caitlin chuckle. He was holding a flask in his hand that has a bright blue spot on the side, probably not visible under normal light. He started to swab it and put it in an evidence envelope as he put it in his back Cisco called out to them

 **"Hey, I got that footage you wanted"** showing him the tablet.

They went outside and started watching the security videos. One man appeared on the footage that obviously knew his way around the lab. After the door was destroyed they went straight to the lab containing the power cell and opened it with the code for the day.

 **"Caitlin, Cisco, who has that code on a normal day at STAR?"** Barry asked

 **"The code is changed daily at 8 AM right before the employees come back to work"** Cisco started to explain **"In order for them to get the new code they have to go the back of the lab and provide retinal and handprint ID. At that time the new code will be sent to their respective workstations and they are the only persons that can work with it for the day"**

Looking at the footage inside the lab they found out with stupor that nobody had worked in that lab the day before, therefore it was impossible to know the code since nobody else had actually used it.

 **"So…"** Barry shrugged and rubbed his head **"Nobody was here yesterday. Who else receives or has access to these codes?"**

 **"Only four people. Me, Caitlin, Dr. Wells and our security chief, Martin Thatch"** replied Cisco with a coldness about him.

As they continued to watch, they could see the man broke a flask by accident while putting his hand to lean on one of the tables. That led to a wound on his hand, since the shards of glass were red. Calmly enough, he scooped them in his hand and put them in his pocket, with a coldness to him. That instantly led Barry to believe that the man was more than likely a professional thief or just he didn't care. As he walked out from the room, he made a mistake while carrying the cell, which looked rather heavy, as it not was a reduced size model, but only a prototype. He had leaned against the wall for a split second with his hurt hand, trying to regain his balance while carrying the large object.

 **"Cisco, can you pinpoint that exact section of the wall from the footage?"** Barry asked pointing at the spot on the wall that was on the video

 **"Yeah"** he responded. As they walked back toward the entrance, Cisco was looking up to see the placement of the cameras as he stopped looking at a piece of wall **"This is the section you want"** Barry sprayed some chemical on the wall and started to scan with his black light revealing a half hazy handprint and 3 blue spots.

 **"Wonderful, now I have blood samples and hopefully even sweat samples to analyze. As bad as this looks we might have caught a break guys"** Barry threw the two a thousand watt smile.

 **"Hey Barry, come take a look at this"** Cisco waved him over. They could see on the tape that it had some sort of static on it for exactly 2 seconds when the man went in and when the man went out.

 **"Does that happen often on your cameras?"** the CSI asked

 **"No, that's the problem, it never happens. These cameras are state of the art and EM shielded. Maybe a nuclear explosion might manage to create an EMP strong enough for them to have this level of static"** Cisco scratched his head **.**

 **"What about military hardware? You do know there are EMP warheads that can produce the level of interference that a nuclear bomb can without actually having an atomic blast"** Barry replied

 **"Yes, I do know that, but we also have sensors that would have detected something of that size. Even if it was enough to completely shut down our system, the logs would be there and for last night, there was no such type of event"** the engineer showed him the logs for the last day, which held nothing of the sort.

 **"Yeah, besides, why would the military EMP the labs, that makes no sense whatsoever. At least not from my point of view"** Barry stated thinking about a reason as to why that would happen, but coming up with nothing.

 **"You know Barry, we can help you analyze those samples"** Caitlin offered, somehow hoping in the back of her mind that she would see the CSI more around the lab **"STAR labs has quite a comprehensive genetics department"**

 **"To which he has no access to, Caitlin"** Cisco broke her line of thought

 **"I would gladly take your offer. Sadly, if I don't do the samples myself, then they will probably not be admitted in court, unless STAR has a contract with the NCPD I don't know about"** Barry added

 **"Oh"** Caitlin realized **"Then I guess you should run them back at your lab"** Somehow she sounded disappointed, Cisco noticed that immediately

 **"Yes. Thank you for the help, I would ask you send me that footage, I'm guessing that's classified as well" the CSI replied**

 **"You would guess right, most of the stuff here is not classified as it would be from the government, but it does fall into the fact that they are company secrets so … you understand. But if we can help you with anything that is not … we will gladly do so"** Cisco acknowledged and gave Barry a smile

 **"Actually, when I said I would ask, it didn't mean like I would ask. You need to send me the footage anyway, even if I have to talk to Dr. Wells to give me clearance. Getting all the evidence could be key in seeing what actually happened"** Barry smiled **"Just trying to be polite"**

 **"Oh, that makes sense. Is there anything that might be considered as evidence which would might need?"** Cisco jumped to help as best he could, fact that actually made Barry smile.

 **"I need the records of the department in which this lab is. Inventory, who worked here, potential suspects that need interviewed. That should be all. Of course, since it is evidence in an active investigation there is no problem about security"** Barry explained to the short engineer.

 **"I'll clear it with Dr. Wells and have those to you at the precinct as soon as I can pull them from the servers"** the engineer replied immediately

 **"All right, thank you for the help, can one of you call me a cab? I need to go back to the CCPD to process this evidence"**

 **"I can drive you"** Caitlin offered, which was totally out of character for her, she enjoyed driving by herself and enjoying her time alone **"I had no idea how time has flown, it's almost noon. I need to go get lunch anyway"**

 **"I wouldn't want to impose on you, Caitlin. I can always walk to the precinct, but since this is rather urgent a cab would be good"** Barry started to excuse himself thinking he could get out of spending the 10 minutes that would have taken them to reach their destination with the beautiful woman alone in her car. He was an awkward kid when it came to discussions and other sort of socialization. He would be comfortable only with people who were his friends.

 **"Its fine, Barry. Come on"** as she started walking toward the parking lot. He followed her slowly, entrenched in thought, while scribbling stuff in his notebook, which grabbed Caitlin's attention as she glanced back at him while she walked.

Cisco just sat there looking at the two. Something told him he and Barry Allen would become great friends in the eventuality that he had to work with him again. They took the car and drove through the city in less than 30 minutes being in the parking lot next to CC Jitters. The two got out of her car. Caitlin was curious about what Barry had written in his notebook. Curious enough to do something she wouldn't otherwise consider doing. Her demeanor was always cold and calculated and she wasn't someone who would give into a temptation the likes of which Barry Allen was, except for now.

 **"Barry, want to get some coffee? I have some things I want to ask you regarding this break in. If you aren't too busy or in a hurry that is"** She managed to speak, while locking the car. He was taken aback by the invitation and everything he thought at that moment told him to decline except … he didn't, replying almost instantly

 **"Sure, but I just managed to gather evidence. I don't know if there's that much to discuss. In addition, there is something I have to mention. You are part of the people that work there, that makes you either a witness or a suspect. Talking to you would be considered a gross breach of protocol. However, if you just invited me to coffee, I'm sure you won't try to ask questions about the case? Right?"** Barry gave her a smile and winked. She didn't know it could be so much of an issue for him.

 **"No, that is the last thing on my mind. I just wanted to take a nice guy that seemed to need a coffee out for one. Nothing about the case you`re working on"** she played his game, because she wanted to know more and she knew that he had at least an idea of what was going on, but if anyone asked, this would have just been a simple coffee between friends. He was brilliant, from what she had initially seen, to not to be completely in the dark. At least she thought he was, an opinion based on just a few pieces of evidence could have always been misleading.

CC Jitters was housed in a medium sized enclosure, with a large counter at one end, where people would come to order their coffee. On each side of the teller's spot there were large glass cases with different sorts of sweets, from donuts to muffins and even slices of cake, the other side holding different types of sandwiches and pastry. The place in itself was large enough to house at least two dozen people with tables all around. Above the cashier and the counter that held the sweets there was a large sign that held the special for the day along with all the other types of products you would get there.

The two sat down at a table in the back and ordered coffees. Barry picked that place for the simple reason that it could not be seen from the outside, that particular corner being shielded by a wall that had no windows. Caitlin ordered some food as well since she was on her lunch break while Barry pulled out his notebook. They started to talk in whispers, Caitlin making sure that if possible, they looked like two people enjoying coffee, not someone who would be talking about crimes.

 **"So? What do you think about our break in?"** the doctor asked him

 **"It's strange. This should totally be an inside job, if I consider the evidence that I found till now, but something tells me it's not"** Barry whispered

 **"Why would you say that, it's obvious that the security chief did it"** Caitlin responded without flinching.

 **"Only him, huh?"** He smirked at her

 **"Hey, I didn't do it. I was working at the lab in a totally different wing yesterday, and I was all night at home … alone"** She was kind of bitter about that because she should have spent the afternoon with her brother watching Netflix, but Ronnie decided to ditch her so he could help Dr. Wells with the particle accelerator trials.

 **"That ... Doesn't really provide you with an alibi, Dr. Snow"** Barry stated.

 **"Yeah, being alone doesn't really provide me with an alibi, you`re right. Forget I mentioned anything"** she agreed.

 **"But to be fair, I doubt you or Cisco are the culprits"** he completed as he gave her a wide smile

 **"Why, Mr. Allen, how dare you judge a book by its cover? I could be some master criminal who just poses as a mild mannered doctor"** she laughed

 **"Not judging, I saw the look on your face when you came in this morning. You were worried. When Dr. Wells explained how urgent was for you to help me, you instantly agreed, despite the resistance of potentially having to miss the particle accelerator opening. I noticed a large hint of annoyance at that, considering this whole thing could lead you to miss the particle accelerator opening, yet you jumped on board wanting to make sure that it does happen, even at the cost of not being present. That in itself made it obvious to me that you put passion in your work and you would not let anyone jeopardize it"** he continued **"You are a professional by your demeanor, which furthermore lessens my suspicions. Someone with that degree of professional courtesy and who shows such passion for their work, could not turn to rob the place they are employed at. Nonetheless, I will follow the trail the evidence leads me down, whichever that might be and to whoever it might lead to, including you, the sweet, mild mannered, Dr. Snow"** he chuckled

Caitlin was left looking at him with her mouth open. In less than a few hours, the smartass CSI had managed to pin her right to everything he said. It was obvious he was a very good judge of character. Even though she did nothing to confirm or deny his claims, she did pick up on the fact that he had called her sweet, a slight blush appearing on her cheeks. It was very uncharacteristic of her to react like this to anyone, she noted to herself that it had been quite a lot of time since someone managed to make her blush by giving her a compliment.

 **"Cisco loves his job way too much to be the leak. He's just like you. Less professional side, more playful, but still passionate about his work. So that leaves your security chief … or Dr. Wells"** Barry finished

 **"Dr. Wells?"** Caitlin said surprised adjusting a strand of hair without realizing it " **That's not possible. He would not put STAR in peril. The particle accelerator is his life, why would he do such a thing when it would severely hamper his life's work?"** She asked surprised that Barry would even consider him.

 **"Sometimes people do stupid things, for love … or for personal gain. You would be surprised how many people have a price in this world"** Barry trailed off thinking about it

 **"Why Barry Allen, I didn't know you were a romantic also such a cynic"** she laughed, a beautiful smile on her face, one which brought Barry out of his thoughts.

 **"Oh I didn't mean it like that, just that people do stupid things. So if you`re so sure about Dr. Wells, let's go with your gut. What can you tell me about Martin Thatch?"** He took a sip of his coffee and opened back his notebook

 **"Not that much I'm afraid. We haven't been that properly introduced. I know Dr. Wells trusts him and he's very good at what he does, but he has only need here for the last two months. Our last security chief had an accident and died so we needed a replacement"** she replied without thinking too much telling Barry that she had nothing to hide

 **"Wait, two months ago you said? Did he die in a car accident while skidding off a cliff?"** Barry asked.

 **"Yes that's the one"** she said while eating the food the waiter had brought while they were talking.

 **"I'm going to let you in on a little secret"** Barry whispered coming closer to her something she felt completely comfortable about, strangely enough, considering that the time he tried to shield her she did not. She shrugged it off and listened **"I was on that case, that crash was no accident. The police are keeping it concealed because we have a lead. The break lines were cut and he couldn't stop. Not so much an accident as a planned sabotage which would inevitably lead to the man's death"**

 **"Wait, are you serious?"** She looked at him **"yes, of course you`re serious, why would you not be "**

 **"Yes, just please keep that to yourself I would not rather be fired for giving away info on an ongoing case to someone that has no relation to the CCPD"** Barry commented realizing he said a bit too much

 **"Don't worry, Mr. Allen. Your info is safe with me"** She gave him an assuring smile **"That means those two cases might be related, is that what you`re telling me?"**

 **"I don't have the whole picture, Caitlin, but I would appear like someone took out your former security chief to get Thatch into STAR labs. As to who that might be … I have no idea. Of course, like in any supposition the two cases being connected, it could simply be coincidence as well. I'm pretty much in the dark right now, which is why I need to go analyze this evidence"** Barry replied nonchalantly. Caitlin seemed affected by what he had just said. It was dawning on her that this might have been indeed an inside job. Her thoughts started to show on her face as Barry noticed this.

 **"Hey, Caitlin. Don't worry. Me, Joe and Eddie will find out what happened. We'll get that power cell back and make sure nothing happens to the grand opening of the accelerator"** He assured her with a smile

 **"I hope you`re right"** said Caitlin finishing her food and her drin **k " _He seems pretty sure that he can help, and I think he can or won't stop trying until he does"_** she thought to herself.

Barry finished his coffee as well as they were chatting and as they were getting up to leave he asked for the tab. Without any of them realizing he paid for everything and they left Jitters continuing to talk about the case, until they reached her car.

 **"All right, this is it. Thanks for the ride, Caitlin, I'm going to be legging it from here to the station. I need the downtime to think"** Barry spoke.

 **"Are you sure?"** she asked **"It`s no trouble at all for me to take you to the station then double back to go to STAR"**

 **"Yes, that's perfectly fine. I need to get in and start the genetics work on these samples. With a bit of luck, we'll know who got your power cell by the end of the day "and he threw her one of those winning smiles, like nothing had been going wrong**

 **"All right. In case you need a second opinion, here is my number. You know where to find me"** the scientist replied getting into her car while Barry took out his kit from the back.

 **"Thank you, if I have any questions I'll call, I'm just a CSI, not a specialist in genetics and molecular biology like someone I know"** The CSI gave her a smirk

 **"No, just a really cute intelligent smartass"** she mumbled

 **"What was that?"** Barry asked **"I couldn't make out the last sentence there"**

 **"Nothing. Good day, Barry. I need to get back to STAR for the particle accelerator opening tonight. Have a good day"** she replied smiling at him

 **"Same to you Caitlin. Good luck on that, I wanted to come and see it, but it seems that I will be quite busy"** he retorted

Barry left the parking lot and started to move faster toward the station. Something was stirring in his brain that he just couldn't put his finger on. Something was not adding up, but what stood out of the few things was the way the theft was conducted, almost no evidence inside and the messy door explosion.

 ** _"Why make such a mess when it's clear they had inside help from someone. Why make it such a public and noticeable event by blowing down the door, rather than just sneak in grab it and leave?"_** he asked himself while he walked. Something was off. Another thing that he actually was surprised about was how Caitlin acted toward him, he was so tired to deal with Doctors, some of them that he had met during his work would be some of the worst high and mighty assholes that he had ever had the displeasure of meeting. It was they were like above him and acted like it simply because of their education. With her, it was different and that made him like her even more.

He reached the station and got up to the lab starting to disconnect from the world through work, putting everything in test tubes. Prepared solutions for the DNA test and while the genetic sequencer was running, he decided to review the evidence from the theft.

After a while, the DNA sequencer blurted out results, which took him for a ride. Also his normal analysis of the cells in the blood under a microscope brought out something really interesting they had empty parts to them, almost like there were supposed to be something in them at that point but there wasn't _._

 ** _"What the hell is this?"_ **he jumped when he saw something, which completely left him stunned. There were irregularities in the genetic sequence, kind of like it had been modified from a normal human to something unrecognizable. The modifications looked random and not engineered, but the sequence was still something that started immediately to puzzle him. He decided to run a carbon dating on the cells just to be able to know more precisely when they were split, being thankful the new carbon dating worked on stuff less than 500 years, but what he saw was … impossible. Barry picked up the phone and dialed the number that Caitlin gave him. A sweet voice answered.

 **"Yes? Who is this?"**

 **"Hey, Caitlin, it's Barry. Can you … come down to the precinct, I have something that will blow your mind"** he looked at the display of the carbon dating which read _"– 8"._

 **"Barry, can we leave this for another time, the particle accelerator is about to be activated. I really need to be here for this after all the work me and my brother have put into this"** she responded

 **"Trust me. This is something you definitely want to see. The evidence is … useless considering what I found"** the answer came to strengthen what he had said.

 **"Wait, what did you say? The evidence is useless? Did you mess up, Barry Allen?"** she replied coyly.

 **"Caitlin, if I messed up then this must be the most sequential mistake ever. I ran the tests 3 times and they yielded the same results"** He said with urgency in his voice.

 **"All right. This better be good or else I'm going to be really mad for missing the particle accelerator opening"** She spoke

 **"It's safe to say this has never happened … anywhere in the world in the world of forensics … until now"** The voice coming out of his mouth had a much graver tone than he thought.

 **"All right, I'm going to talk to Dr. Wells, then I'll be on my way"** she replied then ended the call.

After talking to Dr. Wells and explaining the urgency of her being at the station because Barry might have found something very important, he reluctantly decided to let her go and called Ronnie in, which had the day off, to assist as she got in her car and drove to the precinct.

 ** _"What could he have found that was so important?"_ **She asked herself remembering his voice and how panicked it sounded. He did say the evidence found was useless, **" _could he have botched the samples?_** _"_ No, that couldn't be it, he seemed to be very good at what he does.

Caitlin had no idea what he could have found. In the meantime, she reached the precinct with lingering thoughts and being anxious to see what Barry might have found that was so important to drag her from the opening of the Particle Accelerator. Seeing Joe inside, she went straight to him

 **"Hello, Detective West"**

 **"Hello, Dr. Snow, what brings you here?"** the detective greeted her

 **"Can you tell me how to get to Barry's lab? He called me and said there is something bioengineering related he would like my opinion on"** she lied, but if the news was so bad as Barry told her, it would have been best to not raise many questions from the detectives.

 **"Sure, go up those stairs; make a right then another right, then a left. You should be in a hallway with the lab door on the left"** he explained

 **"Thank you"** She went up the stairs and followed the instructions to reach a large sliding metal door that was open. It was a large lab, full of shelves of chemicals on either side, large windows and a large sky light. Everything was pretty much in order as Caitlin found Barry at his workbench preparing samples of DNA.

 **"Hey, Barry"** She spoke softly

 **"Hey, Caitlin. I have something here you won't believe. Tell me, what you know about carbon dating?"** the man asked her a simple question

 **"It's supposed to be able to determine the age of something? And considering it measures the life of carbon isotopes since their inception the number of that said analysis cannot be negative"** she replied being quite sure of her words.

 **"Are you sure it cannot be negative?"** Barry asked her seriously

 **"Yes I'm sure, it measured the time carbon atoms since they have been created to the time they are in the cell or item that you are dating"** she replied with conviction

 **"Then tell me, why does this read -8?"** Barry asked with a panicked face.

She froze at the number that was on the display of the machine. She couldn't believe what she was reading, in the event of a total blunder the lowest number that it could yield was 0, meaning the sample was unstable, bad or contaminated. A negative number was indeed something that should have not shown up under any circumstances.

 **"Barry, how … what …"** Caitlin could barely talk looking at the result **"How many times did you run the test on those cells?"**

 **"Three"** he answered **"I can prepare more material but with the evidence we have it can only be for 3 more slides. You are welcome to try it yourself, if you think I screwed up"**

 **"I think I will. No offense to your CSI skills, but this is … impossible"** the doctor replied putting her bag on a table and getting out of the coat she was wearing. She put on some gloves and went to work.

 **"None taken, this is something I haven't seen before in my life. That is the reason I called you, if you find the same thing that means I'm not crazy"** he sat down in a chair waiting for the completion of her analysis.

 **"Well, there is folie à deux, you know"** She gave him a faint smile and started doing her own analysis. After a few more rounds of tests and confirming the validity of Barry's dating she sat down looking completely baffled at the tests that … somehow had a negative number for a result.

 **"This is impossible, do you know what this means … means that these cells are …"** and before she had a chance to finish her sentence, he completed it

 **"… from the future"**

They were both looking at one another with disbelief in their eyes, when she checked his clock. It was 40 minutes past the time the particle accelerator activation and nothing had happened, no singularity, no earthquakes, nothing that those people in the scientific community thought that might happen. However, her thoughts were interrupted by a flash of light appeared as she turned her head and saw a massive column of energy go straight up into the sky from inside the particle accelerator at STAR. Barry's lab had a direct view of the building. She felt a push and went straight into Barry who was trying to close the skylight.

He saw the bright light of the particle accelerator exploding and all of a sudden all the chemicals in the lab started flowing up Like there was no gravity or maybe a magnetic field strong enough that it was bending gravity locally. He rushed to close the sky light as the pouring rain menaced to come through into the lab. She noted that the rain started coming down almost instantly, something that led her to think that the explosion was affecting weather as well.

He was looking up trying to drag the chain that closed the metal shutters on the skylight and then the corner of his eye caught a flash of red lightning pushing Caitlin into him. The young CSI felt the burning pain of electrocution go through him, like fire was going through his veins, but not in just a second, the moment he was struck seemed like an hour with all the heat and the energy that was going through him. He noted to himself through all the pain that it seemed like the world was standing still, or maybe he was dying. He didn't know, he just wanted it to be over and done with.

The lightning had struck both of them as they touched, Caitlin being pushed into Barry, by the unknown lightning trail. She tried to stabilize herself as she lost her footing, her hand grabbed the first thing that it could hang on to. His hand, the hand that was on the chain of the skylight shutters. They both flew in different directions, onto different shelves. The lab was a mess, chemicals were everywhere, some of them floated into the air for a small period of time before crashing down onto the floor, as a small flash of orange lightning could be seen coursing through Barry's skin. On the other side of the lab, Caitlin Snow was inert on the floor of the indoor freezer that the lab had for handling dangerous chemicals that needed cold instead of normal storage conditions. On her skin there was a streak of lightning that was coursing through her, much like Barry, instead her lightning was blue and as it travelled up her face the chemicals around it instantly froze or created small clouds of fog that were going off her body.


	2. Lightning

It was afternoon. The music he could hear was something eerily similar **" _Why do I hear Poker face and where am I?"_** he asked himself while trying to open his eyes. His eyelids were very heavy, like they haven't been used in a long while. Something that initially frightened him was the fact that his body was stuck, trying to move it yielded nothing and sometimes with enough force his muscles ached. After a few more tries, he managed to move and open his eyes.

 **"Dr. Wells, get in here as fast as you can, he's waking up"** he could hear a voice which seemed eerily familiar.

 **"Cisco? What the hell happened to me?"** he said trying to get up from the bed he was in after managing to open his eyes

 **"Hey dude, calm down. Take it easy. Dr. Wells is going to be with you in a minute"** As he stood up, he saw a similar figure in a bed near to his. It was Caitlin Snow; she tied into the same machines. He was extremely surprised and distraught seeing her motionless there with many wires on her.

 **"What happened, why is Caitlin unconscious? Where are we?"** he started blabbering.

 **"Calm down Barry, you were struck by lightning. Not only you, but Caitlin as well. You were in the hospital, but then we brought you back to STAR. You were in a coma"** the engineer tried to calm him down as his heart rate had shot through the roof

 **"Wait, lightning gave me abs?"** he looked incredulously in the mirror in front of him. **"You said I was in a coma. For how long?"**

 **"3 months. 2 weeks you were in a hospital, but some things happened. Therefore, we brought you here. We had someone monitor you and Caitlin, but for some reason she decided to leave a week ago. Resigned. We were afraid we might have to take you back to the hospital since neither me or Dr. Wells have medical expertise"** Cisco replied while he was really surprised about the new state of his body. After a few minutes, a figure in a wheelchair came into the room.

 **"Welcome back, Mr. Allen. We thought we lost you"** Barry was taken aback by the figure who he had admired for a long time.

 **"Dr. Wells. What happened to you?"** He remembered the Harrison Wells that he met right before the incident with the lightning and he was most definitely not in a wheelchair.

 **"Come with me"** Wells motioned to Barry to come with him and he took him to the overlook of a large hole that was above what seemed to be a ruined pipeline complete with searing and explosion marks **"3 months ago today the particle accelerator came online. For 40 minutes I saw my life's work coming to fruition, but then, there was an anomaly. The energy became immeasurable and the particle accelerator exploded, sending dark matter up into the atmosphere"** he started

 **"Which in turn seeded a cloud that created a storm. That storm produced the lightning bolt that hit Caitlin and I"** Barry continued like it was not the first time he had heard these words.

 **"Correct, Mr. Allen, impressive deductive skills"** the two started headed back to the Cortex. **"As I was … recovering myself I heard about you and Dr. Snow. I was worried when she did not show up for work for a while, but did not search for her actively. The hospital was swamped with all kinds of cases, but you were special. Both of you have been having seizures and while in those seizures the hospital was having constant blackouts"** Wells concluded

Barry suddenly found in his mind information and data that there were not there before. A whole slew of Medical knowledge that he didn't know where he had gained. Beside that, he was like a walking encyclopedia of bioengineering and genetics.

 **"Your heartbeats were too fast to be measured by normal devices. Somehow that created an EM field that blew out power in the hospital"** Wells continued

 **"That's why you brought us to STAR"** Barry stated bluntly

 **"Yes"** but before he managed to continue a voice came through the com system

 **"You two need to get back here RIGHT NOW, Caitlin is having another seizure"** Cisco was almost yelling. They reached the Cortex just in time to see Cisco almost having a panic attack because of the good doctor that was in a coma. Instinctively, Barry started to look around at the substances that were in the lab. He took 10 ccs of Betapace and a syringe and put it in the IV bag that was tied into her arm. Before any of the two people that were in the room had any chance to react, her Heart rate calmed down and the electronics stopped beeping, her seizure stopping and turning into nice rhythmic breathing.

 **"How … Did you do that?"** the engineer looked at his with a quizzical face.

 **"I knew what was wrong with her and I knew what to do to solve the problem"** Barry blurted without thinking.

 **"You never told me you were an MD, Barry Allen"** Cisco continued happily **"Since our own biomedical engineer, MD and all around medical support is sitting there in that bed, your knowledge is very welcome"**

 **"Cisco, I'm a CSI. I have had a bit of medical school, but I'm nowhere near the level of an MD. I seem to have additional information that should not be there. I just saw what was happening and reacted. Giving my new found knowledge I knew what was wrong and knew how to fix it, so I did"** Barry replied

 **"Mr. Allen, could it be that you and Dr. Snow might have been affected in some other ways by that lightning than the seizures, the unexplained power outages and the extremely fast paced heart rhythm?"** Wells conjectured looking strangely at Barry

 **"I do not know, but somehow I think I have the knowledge and the tools here in the lab to find out. Do you mind if I spend the rest of the time until she wakes up here at STAR trying to figure out what happened to us?"** the answer came

 **"Of course not, bro. mi Cortex es su Cortex"** Cisco spoke in an accent that made Barry chuckle.

 **"I'll get on the access clearance right away"** Wells replied immediately **"Welcome to STAR Labs, Mr. Allen"**

 **"Call me Barry. Mr. Allen is my father"** The CSI replied

While Dr. Wells was away, Barry wanted to know from Cisco if someone had been there to visit in the time that he was unconscious. He had been told that the only two people that would visit constantly would be Joe and Iris.

 **"Did anyone come to visit Caitlin while we were out?"**

 **"Barry, her brother died in the particle accelerator explosion. He was the one who managed to seal the pipeline to the explosion went up instead of destroying Central City"** Cisco answered him

 **"She doesn't have any other relatives? I mean literally nobody came to see her?"** Barry's voice almost cracked, but he held it at bay.

 **"Her mother, which ... she doesn't really get along with, but that's about it as far as relatives go. As I said, her brother was killed in the explosion. Yes. Nobody came to see her, Barry. I don't count myself and Dr. Wells, since we're always here"** the engineer said with sadness on his face.

 **"Wow. I find that … very sad"** the surprise on Barry's face was visible. She didn't have anyone else to take care of her. Not even an adoptive father or some friends besides Cisco and Dr. Wells. Somehow, Barry found himself a new purpose, beside that of getting his father out of Jail. He didn't know if this was the girl that helped him that time when he was down and beat on the ground. Something however told him she was and he wanted to repay the kindness she showed back then. He was going to make sure that she would wake up or at least take care of her if she didn't. **" _I guess her work is really that important that she doesn't make friends easily and the luck that her only relative that she cares about died in the same accident that put us in a coma, that must be tough"_** he thought to himself while remembering her initial cold nature and professionalism somehow knowing that it had been tough for her these last years. **"Cisco, where are my clothes and belongings, I kind of need my cell back. I want to call Iris and Joe and let them now I'm awake"**

 **"Down the hallway there's the locker room. The last locker on the right has all your stuff in it"** Cisco responded while tinkering away at one of his consoles.

 **"Thank you"** Barry went down to the locker room and found his stuff, got his phone and dialed a particular number. He was calling Iris. He considered that the woman he had loved for such a long time, even if she was his foster sister at this point, needed to be notified first.

 **"Hello, Iris, it's Barry. I woke up from the coma"**

 **"Oh. My. God. Barry. Are you all right? Is everything ok?"** A cheery crackling voice was heard from the other side of the line

 **"I woke up, but Caitlin is still asleep. I need to run some more tests on myself to see what kind of damage the lightning bolt did. Come by STAR when you get off your shift at Jitters if you want to see me. I'll be here"** the answer came

 **"You bet. I'll be there as soon as I get off work. I'll bring my father as well. You did call him to tell him you`re awake, right?"** she asked with inquisitive tone.

 **"Not yet. You were the first one I called. But I'll call him right after this"** Barry told her

 **"All right. See you tonight"** she sounded happy as she hung up **" _All right. Now to call Joe"_** he thought to himself as he dialed. The first few calls were a wash, but Barry kept trying. After his mother's murder the man had taken him into his home, becoming his de facto adoptive father, which was even more amazing considering he already had Iris to take care of as well as working as Detective, which was in itself time consuming. He was the one that was responsible for the rest of the upbringing and strong moral values that our CSI held close to his heart. The man needed to know that he was awake. After a few tries he managed to get Joe on the phone.

 **"Hey, Joe. I'm awake"**

 **"Barry. I'm so glad to hear your voice. When did you wake up?"** the detective answered with obvious excitement in his voice.

 **"A few hours ago, was a bit disoriented that's why I waited to call until now"** the answer came from the other side of the line

 **"So how are you?"** Joe asked immediately

 **"I don't know yet. I will have to run some tests to see what has happened. But as of now … nothing seems to have changed, except somehow now I have knowledge of stuff I have never studied"** Barry amazed with himself but also worried not knowing where he had his newfound knowledge.

 **"What do you mean Barry? What kind of knowledge"** Joe asked; worry could be heard from his voice

 **"Caitlin was having a seizure earlier and … without actually knowing. It dawned on me how to stop it, with what drug and what are the effects. It's like I'm all of a sudden a doctor and I don't know from where"** Barry answered with a stern voice

 **"Is she all right?"** the question came

 **"Yes, I managed to stabilize her. However, I don't know how or why. Now I know I have to run some tests for some things that I have never tried before. It's like now I'm a medic and a bio engineer, also it seems that there are other things in my noggin, like genetics and hematology"** he replied to his foster father.

 **"Well, you do what you have to do. Just make sure you're all right and Caitlin is as well"** Joe added from the other side of the line

 **"Yes. I'll do that. Also Iris is coming by later and she will probably want you to tag along. Just so you know"** Barry informed him

 **"Thanks, Bar. We'll see you later then"** the detective replied

 **"Most definitely, I shall be here running my tests"** Barry interjected.

As the call closed, Barry started working frantically to find out how did he have those memories and what had happened to him during that time. He took blood samples, urine samples, skin samples and tissue samples from himself at first. He did not know what he was doing, but it seemed pretty clear that he actually did with his new found knowledge.

He also took some samples from Caitlin to see if she had been affected in the same way as he was and he got to work on them. He knew everything that needed to be done and how to do it, astonishing even himself. It was like he had gone through med school and through bio engineering. Genetics was something that was clear was spring water as well. He had all the knowledge, just no memories of ever studying something like that.

Barry was so entrenched in his thoughts that he didn't even feel three hours passing. After going and getting a lab coat and some gloves, he went to work. What he had managed to figure out was that for some reason his Brain scan and EKG were similar to Caitlin's. They had the same areas of the brain lit up and their brainwaves were almost perfectly in sync. Nevertheless, beside that, he hadn't come up with anything remotely useful or any sort of definitive answers as to why he had suddenly become a doctor.

He did not manage to observe the two people that were entering the Cortex looking for him and as he was staring down the results for several types of blood tests as well as a CT scan he heard a voice.

 **"Barry!"** and barely having time to get up his chair and up from his thoughts a figure lunged at him for a hug. It was Iris. At that exact time, while he looked over not trying to dodge the hug time slowed down to a crawl. He could see everything clearly, as if it was a bad movie on pause, except it was 3D. Then the effect subsided and he felt Iris giving him a hug.

 ** _"What the hell was that?"_** he asked himself while Joe came closer to them

 **"I'm so glad that you`re awake. How are you feeling?"** Iris asked with a big smile on her face.

 **"I seem to be fine, all the tests that I managed to run on myself and Caitlin are normal"** He was lying by omission. A few tests were off, way off. Starting with the fact that Caitlin's heart could beat at 400 bpm and it didn't explode or that her apparent body temperature was about 5 degrees lower than it should have been. However, he didn't want to alarm them, by mentioning that.

 **"What do you mean, Bar"** Joe interjected **"The tests you ran. I thought you were a CSI not a medical professional"** then he remembered what Barry had told him a few hours ago **"Sorry, I completely blacked out on what you told me earlier"**

 **"Well, apparently now he's not only a medical professional but also a bio engineer and a geneticist"** a cheery voice could be heard, moments before Cisco came back into the Cortex. **"Hey, Joe. Hey, Iris"** he welcomed the guests.

 **"Hey, Cisco"** they both answered and Joe continued **"What do you mean, apparently?"**

 **"Well, I'm familiar with the types of tests Caitlin used to run in her work and what Barry did for the last 3 hours seem a whole of a lot like those"** He answered looking at the gene sequencer and the test tubes that were lying on the table with samples. They both looked at Barry, which lifted his shoulders and shrugged.

 **"As far as I can find out till now, the lightning bolt had another effect besides putting us in comas" he walked to the monitors and put the other pair of sensors on himself "As you can see me and her have almost the same brainwave patterns as well. That not only shouldn't happen, but if I didn't see it with my own eyes I'd say it's impossible"** He looked at the engineer **"Cisco, mind getting another blanket for Caitlin?"** Barry added as he looked at the body temp. **"She seems to be cold, but I have no idea why, yet"**

 **"Yes, I'm on it"** Cisco went to the storage rooms to get what the CSI requested of him.

 **"So what do you plan to do now with your … new found life"** Joe asked

 **"Nothing at the moment. You two aren't going to tell anyone I woke up. Not yet anyway"** Barry said calmly

 **"Wait, why would you do that?"** Iris chimed in. **"You are alive and well. Don't you think the world needs to know that?"**

 **"So what if they did? The people that need to know now know. Joe if you don't mind going to tell my father that I'm all right I mean"** Barry looked at his adoptive father.

 **"Sure Bar, that's not a problem, but I have to ask the same as Iris did. Why would you want to continue to be in a coma?"** the detective crossed his arms

 **"Because I do not know what that lightning bolt has done to me. Or to her"** he pointed at an inert Caitlin lying on the surgical bed **"I don't intend to stop running tests until I find out for sure that none of us are in any kind of danger. For all I know I can be alive right now and die tomorrow from a total cell failure or a neural decay or anything else that could be even worse"**

Iris and Joe saw the wisdom in that decision, even though they did not understand it. Barry was right, until they knew more about their conditions it was safest to not reveal to anyone else that he woke up. Just the people that actually mattered.

 **"All right, Barry. We'll keep it on the down low for now and we'll keep visiting and help in any way we can"** Iris came back to her cheerful self after being a bit in thought herself

 **"Joe?"**

 **"Don't look at me, whatever you need, Bar. If that's what you think is best then we won't argue with you"** Joe quickly replied

 **"Thank you both, can someone get me some food? I woke up but I haven't eaten yet. I was busy trying to find out what happened"** Barry replied feeling his stomach grumble

 **"I'm going"** Iris replied

 **"And I'm coming with you"** Cisco added while getting the blanket Barry required for Caitlin. As the two left, Joe took around the medical bay and noticed all the tests his son was running at the same time. Besides managing to run every test he could think of he was constantly monitoring Caitlin's vitals. Checking for abnormalities and anything else that might give him an idea of what was happening. He turned on the electric blanket and walked back toward the center room

Not even 20 minutes had passed when alerts went off from the BP monitor the O2 sat monitor and the body temp monitor. They were all going erratic as Barry noticed the mist that was emanating from Caitlin from beneath the hot blanket.

 **"Shit"** He turned off the blanket, noticing that it was not hot at all, it was actually freezing cold, like something had drained it completely **"Joe take that off her. I think her body either adversely reacts to heat or needs heat for something. This is really interesting; I need to find out more about what's happened to the cells in her body"**

 **"Barry, did you see the mist that began to form?"** Joe started to say something but Barry was way ahead of him.

 **"Yeah, her body started cooling even further, her temperature spiked for a bit, but after that it started dropping again. The only good thing is that her vitals have stabilized"** Barry commented.

 **"Do you have any idea of what you`re doing?"** the detective asked

 **"Yes, I'm trying to stabilize her temperature. Her pulse and BP are fine now. The heat was making them go haywire"** Barry quickly answered while going back to the monitors. The spike was definitely there. Caitlin's body reacted pretty badly to the heat that was being given off by the electric blanket.

As soon as she was stable, Barry pulled a blood collection kit and drew out some blood to get under a microscope. What he found was fascinating; her blood cells had crystals in them. Ice crystals no less, but one moment they were there one moment they weren't **" _This is nuts, this would kill a normal human being"_** Barry thought to himself and his expression changed enough for Joe to notice.

 **"What is it, Barry? You look really freaked out about what you just saw"**

 **"Joe, this is … impossible. There are ice crystals forming and disappearing in her cells"** Barry stated not believing it himself.

 **"Barry, talk to me like I'm not a science nerd"** Joe rolled his eyes

 **"You cannot have ice crystals in your cells. The moment the ice crystals penetrate the cell it dies. That's why cryonics wasn't viable. They could freeze someone, yes , but they could not find something that would not form ice crystals in the cells literally tearing them apart from inside, yet, for some reason, Caitlin doesn't have that problem"** he explained as best he could to a non-science nerd as Joe so nicely put it .

 **"She is ok, right?"** Joe echoed his thoughts.

 **"Yes, for now. Her cells seem to be in a stated of accelerated regeneration. It's like even if the ice did damage to her cells she's healing"** Both people were speechless, especially after Joe understood what Barry was talking about. They sat for a moment not realizing the silence between them

 **"Hey, we`re back"** Cisco and Iris both came back in the Cortex. Each holding a pizza and some ice cream including two coffees.

 **"Thank god for you two. I'm starving. Let's go eat"** Barry replied

 **"You go eat, Bar. I need to go back to the precinct and finish some reports. I'll be back tomorrow and we can chat some more. Bye everyone and have a good day"** Joe got up from the table, took his coat and left.

A few minutes later in the mess hall the three people stood there with looks of awe on their faces as Barry stuffed his face with pizza. They had no idea where he was putting it all, but considering he had just been in a coma, they weren't really surprised by it.

 **"Maybe I should just call you Food Vacuum from now on"** Cisco smiled across the table

 **"How about I just start calling you Francisco in that case"** Barry replied as a smile appeared on his face knowing full well what would happen

 **"Okay, then maybe I won't call you that. But if you call me Francisco again, I will have to disintegrate you, just out of principle"** Cisco started to laugh.

They started laughing, Iris looking strangely at Cisco thinking to herself **" _Wait, can he really disintegrate Barry? I mean what kind of research does this guy do over here anyway?"_** Nevertheless, he immediately calmed down when he saw the two laughing to something she could only categorize as an inside joke.

 **CCPD – an hour later**

Joe was looking over the reports from his cases solved and unsolved that were on his desk for the week. One folder annoyed him in particular. The case where this all began, the theft at STAR Labs. The evidence that had been gathered that day still collected dust in Barry's lab, the few conclusions he was able to piece together that day before he called in Caitlin and before the lightning hit were definitely not enough to get them anywhere. The leads he ran down one after another were dead ends and since the only evidence could not be processed or could have been destroyed or tainted by the long time it had spent in the lab since the accident the case in itself now was classified as unsolved and put in the cold case trash heap.

Eddie had known for a while that Joe had an itch about that case, but he was unable to help. Also dating his daughter behind his back did not really help him either. Sometimes the usual talks between them would become rather awkward without him even trying. He would have thought that Joe would have picked up on this by now. He was a detective, but to his peace of mind nothing had appear to corroborate his fears.

 **"Hey Joe, what's bothering you?"** he thought to strike up a conversation even though silence was normal in the precinct especially when they all had jobs to do

 **"That theft case from STAR Labs has been classified now as a cold case and put aside"** Joe answered

 **"Are you sure that's it? Is Barry ok?"** Eddie knew about Barry and Caitlin's comas, and being Iris's boyfriend meant that he could ask how they were doing as well. He didn't know Barry that well, but he was Iris's adopted brother so asking never hurt, especially if she needed some peace of mind or someone to just be there for her and listen.

 **"Still in a coma"** Joe replied almost automatically, remembering that he should keep the information of Barry being awake a secret **"Dr. Wells and Cisco are taking care of them. At this point we don't know if either of them will wake up, but they are at least trying to find out"** his words bringing a genuine worry on his face. However, it was more about Dr. Snow, since Barry was already awake. The alarms blared as dispatch asked for reinforcements on 25th and western. A bank robbery was in progress.

 **"Let's go, maybe a little bit of action will get your mind off your problems"** Eddie urged the older detective.

 **"I'd have never thought that I would be going to a bank robbery to gather my thoughts. " Joe suddenly laughed "This is a new one even for me"** and got up got his coat and followed Eddie out the door who was already chuckling at the idea.

 **-STAR Labs a few hours later -**

Cisco and Iris had gone home. Dr. Wells as well. It was night outside and Barry continued with the batches of tests that he was performing on his cells and Caitlin's. As he was sitting down to use the centrifuge for some blood samples, he heard something

 ** _"Where am I? Hello? Is there anyone here?"_ **He turned back to the bed where Caitlin was in her hospital gown and saw tears that rolled down her face even though she was immobile. By the way her brainwaves spiked and looked, she was still in a coma **" _Did I hear that right? She can't speak in a coma. This isn't a dream state. She is not asleep. The brain centers that are required for speech and dream processing are shut down"_** He marveled at himself having no idea where he knew that. This was deep into neurosurgery and it was obvious this was just one of the new skills that he had … obtained after the lightning struck.

 ** _"Oh god. Mom, help me. Don't leave me here"_** Barry had been checking Caitlin out as his jaw dropped. He was hearing her voice, but she was not moving her lips. **" _What the hell?!"_** he thought to himself, since he didn't see her saying anything. This was very unusual for him. He had half a mind to run to the cafeteria and make himself a salt circle after all that happened but he shrugged it off thinking that he had watched Supernatural excessively. I mean ghosts weren't real … right? He smiled and wiped her tears away gently with the tip of his fingers turning back to the workstation.

Before he got there, he heard a loud scream almost putting him off his balance knocking an IV pole off its center. As it started to drop, the world slowed down again. He could move in this slowed environment he found out, long enough for him to grab the pole and put it back before it fell. Then the world started moving at normal pace again.

 ** _"What is happening to me?"_** Barry got a skin sample off himself and went back at the microscope to look at the cells. The knowledge he had told him something was off about him. His cells had empty spaces in them, something that any bio engineer or microbiologist would say that is impossible. It was as if the small holes he saw were meant to be filled with something which now was missing. He was reminded about the cells that he had initially tested in the lab before the lightning. Much to his own surprise, the two while being different presented the same types of structural changes. **" _So the lightning and the dark matter in the particle accelerator explosion did indeed affect me. Until now I thought that it only affected Caitlin with her cells being able to generate ice crystals without getting permanently damaged, but I was wrong"_** he managed to tell himself realizing that he was changing.

 ** _"I do not want to be alone, someone help me. I do not want to die"_** Barry heard the familiar voice and turned to Caitlin again. Without much thinking, he took the tablet tied into the mainframe of STAR and sat down in a chair next to her bed, watching over results and stats while he kept an eye on her. He even held her hand at a point, thinking maybe if she knew that someone was there, she would not have nightmares again. It would always help him when he had trouble sleeping in the past, Joe would come in and hold him until he fell asleep. The night of his mother's murder still weighed on him heavily.

As soon as he held her hand he felt something pass between them, almost like electricity and a rush of unknown flashes ran in his head giving him a headache so strong that he had to grab the bed railing while his mind was sorting through everything.

There was that night the particle accelerator exploded, but when the lightning hit it was only him, Caitlin was nowhere in sight.

Then there she was again in a white lab coat and Cisco, dawning over him looking him over. He was the one in the bed in a coma this time, Iris and Joe came almost every day. Iris came with Eddie Thawne a few times, almost begging through her look that Caitlin and Cisco don't mention their relationship to Joe.

Then Joe talking to Cisco and Caitlin about his condition and mentioning that they are hopeful but 7 months had already passed and at this point, he had to be ready for the eventuality that he might never wake up again.

Caitlin mentioning to Cisco in a saddened voice that she would be ok after Ronnie, her fiancée, died saving the city the night the particle accelerator exploded. Her face and her eyes said otherwise, but Cisco had always tried to help her get over it. Then the images stopped. He was able to process what he had seen

 ** _"Ronnie is her brother, why am I having flashes of him being her fiancée and why am I seeing Iris with Eddie?"_** Those were the main questions that lingered in his mind, which he wanted to figure out as soon as possible.

Sitting back down near Caitlin's bed, holding her hand for a few moments as of to let her know someone is around he started to compare the things that happened that night with the images he had been seeing. There were considerable differences, the main one being there was no flash to push Caitlin into him as he was being struck by lightning, also there were the minor problems of Ronnie being Caitlin's fiancée not her brother and of course Iris dating Eddie. Nevertheless, the orange lightning was the one thing that puzzled him the most. The first and last time he had seen it was … that night which he could never forget. The night of his mother's murder.

Looking over the tests results he was feeling his body getting heavy and his eyelids turning into pieces of lead. He powered through to be able to analyze the last batches of tests he had done on himself. He thought it would be better to use his own blood for now, if he took too many samples from Caitlin, which could bring her to a state of shock further lessening the chances of her coming out of the coma she was in. After a few more minutes of reading reports, he was fast asleep in his chair, his hand still holding hers the exhaustion taking its toll on the speedster's body.

 **STAR Labs – Gideon Room**

Harrison Wells had been studying the two people now permanently part of the C **ar** ortex. Barry's attempts to figure out what happened to himself and Dr. Snow were amusing for him, but he decided he would help. He stands up from the wheelchair and put his hand on the pedestal in front of him. A voice could be heard coming from the room

 **"Good Evening, Dr. Wells. What can I help you with today?"**

 **"Good Evening, Gideon. Show me the future"** Wells replied. A light flicker and a page of a newspaper is shown floating above the pedestal. Wells looked strangely at the page and then chuckled. **"Well this was unexpected, but I think I can work with this. Thank you, Gideon. What are the chances that my initial timetable has to change due to this … unexpected circumstance?"**

 **"Negligible, Dr. Wells. Less than 1% according to my calculations"** the AI quickly replied.

 **"Thank you. That will be all for today"** He sat in his chair once again and slowly moved out of the room locking the door behind him.

 **Killer Frost dead. Flash missing in action.**

 **Search Continues**

 **By Iris West**


	3. Dreams

Barry found himself in a strange place. It was like the space he was in constantly shifted, but always kept the form of an immeasurable void filled with dark blue light. Looking around he could see nothing, his eyes could not grasp the boundaries of this place. As he stood there looking around, he saw a figure who was walking slowly farther and farther away from him. He could not make out the face, but he started running toward her as fast as he could.

After some time however, he could not manage to figure out how long it was, he saw that the distance between them was not shrinking, but in fact growing. His running made no sense, it was as if he was running forward, but going backward. Then it dawned on him, this was a dream. He had been running toward his mother in many of his nightmares, never managing to reach her after the orange blur deposited him far away from his house.

At the realization of this, he concentrated and in a moment he was right behind the woman he had seen earlier **" _Sometimes reading books about lucid dreaming helps quite a lot. Let's see who this person actually is"_** he thought to himself, only for his thought to be heard like he was speaking. At this the woman turned to him in shock and he could see clearly now who it was.

 ** _"Caitlin? What are you doing here?"_**

 ** _"Barry? What happened to me, where am I?"_** the woman responded without flinching, but her face told him quite clearly that she was scared.

 ** _"Caitlin, this is a dream, what are you doing in my dream?"_** Barry asked, knowing he had been thinking about her more than he should have, but actually having dreams about her was more than he could process at this moment.

 ** _"Barry, is ... are you sure this is a dream? I've been stuck here for quite a while. All I remember is seeing the explosion at STAR Labs from the window of your laboratory then someone shoving me toward you and that's where everything turns black"_** the woman answered quickly. Barry could not believe what he was hearing. He thought at first all this was a figment of his imagination. Something that appeared to him in his dreams. However, this was almost like … she was real, so he decided to inquire further.

 ** _"What do you remember before that?"_**

 ** _"Well, I was supposed to be at the particle accelerator opening. Then you called me saying you have found something impossible, I went and spoke to Dr. Wells, which had Ronnie sub in for me. After that, when I arrived at your lab, you showed me a readout of a carbon dating test that showed the cells from the blood you collected had a negative index of 8. Which would mean they were from the future"_** she continued **" _I also remember that we went to lunch and you paid for my food. Something that I shouldn't have let you do, since I was the one who invited you to have coffee with me while we discussed the theft that occurred at the labs"_** Barry listened stunned to the woman in what he supposed it was his dream explaining the day before the accident in detail from her own point of view.

 ** _"This is ...impossible"_** he said blinking and his mind trying to wrap itself around the idea that maybe the woman in his dream was actually her. Not an image, not something from his own mind, but actually her.

 ** _"What do you mean? Where are we? I've been lost for what felt like forever in this void until you came along"_** she enquired

 ** _"Caitlin, here's what happened. That night, a bolt of lightning struck you and me. We fell into a coma. Only … I woke up. You are still in that coma and for us to be talking in a dream like we are now … well sorry, but it's something unheard of"_** Barry told her

Her eyes went wide at the words that were pouring out of his mouth. Even if she wanted not to believe what he was telling her, she thought that she was dead and this was hell. So … anything would be better that that.

 ** _"How do you know and who has been taking care of us if we're in a coma?"_** she asked with visible worry on her face.

 ** _"Well, at first we were in the hospital, but we were having seizures. Then Dr. Wells managed to transfer us to STAR labs where the people managed to stabilize us. The STAR labs doctor took care of us until she inexplicably left. After that whole thing passed, I woke up and remained behind to take care of you, since there wasn't a doctor anymore that could see to your medical needs_** _"_ Barry stated his facts.

 ** _"How could you take care of me? You are a CSI. Even if you are a genius in that field, you could still not know what to do in the case of a medical emergency."_** She blurted out. Barry was curious however so he decided to test a theory by asking a simple question

 ** _"Can you tell me some steps in the gathering of evidence at a crime scene?"_** Caitlin made a weird face but she responded

 ** _"Well, I guess the most important ones are scrub the area for tire tracks threads or any kind of imprints, then scrub it for any sort of residue, material or any sort of body fluids, with or without luminol and a black light and then remove any sort of fingerprints and macro evidence like gun casings or any sort of shell residue that might appear"_** and then she realized what she was saying. **" _How did I know that?"_**

Barry's suspicions were confirmed instantly. She was a bioengineer, a geneticist, a doctor and maybe a brain surgeon, but as much medical knowledge as she had the protocol involving a crime scene would be foreign to her. Unless she had his knowledge.

 ** _"The same way I know how to use drugs to slow your heart and find any cellular damage when I took your blood to study. I think the lightning bolt made it in such a way that our respective knowledge was copied from one to the other."_** Barry stated bluntly.

 ** _"Wait, so … you`re telling me that now you`re a doctor?"_** she looked at him crooked

 ** _"Precisely or else I wouldn't even dare to try to take care of you. I'd have left you to Dr. Wells and Cisco"_** he looked down as he was speaking **" _After I woke up the next time I came into the lab Cisco was freaking out and you were having a seizure. Your heart was going at 400 bpm and he was so panicked that I had to … solve … that … myself"_**

 ** _"You WHAT?!"_ **she sounded panicked.

 ** _"Tell me, what would you do to slow my heart down?"_** She told him that there was a drug on her table in the lab and he would give him 10 ccs of that in an IV drip to let his body metabolize the drug without breaking itself apart.

 ** _"That is what I did. Precisely in that order"_** Barry responded, leaving her baffled. It was strange, knowing that he had her knowledge, but Caitlin Snow had a pretty good idea of what she was capable of so she just ended up saying

 ** _"Then you will probably take good care of me out there"_** and she smiled.

 ** _"I am very much trying, Dr. Snow. Nevertheless, you should know something else too. I took some cell samples and your cells are not normal. Not by any standards"_** The man in front of her spoke with a serious face

 ** _"What do you mean? Am I not … human anymore? Or ... did my cells change?"_** she replied sounding very worried and looking sternly at him

 ** _"Your cells are spontaneously producing ice crystals that …"_** Barry didn't get to finish

 ** _"…should immediately destroy them, because ice crystals damage the cell wall. Which is why cryonics hasn't been a big hit"_** He was kind of enjoying having someone on the same page with him, and she was finishing his sentences. **" _But that means I would have brain …"_**

 ** _"…damage, yes indeed"_** he continued **" _except you have nothing of the sort. It's like your cells can heal at high speeds and they are not being damaged by the ice, although, when examining them further it looked more like your cellular material has the ability of growing the ice crystals out of it"_** Both of them looked at each other. Barry could see the worry in her eyes. Not worry that she would die, that she wouldn't wake up or anything else, worry that she would be awake and not be human. She would be a … monster. He detected that and continued **" _My cells aren't better off either"_** She was now looking at him with interest. He managed to capture her attention and not let her give into dark thoughts. **" _While yours seem to have ice crystals growing out of them, mine seem to have spaces in them. Almost like holes, reservoirs for something or I don't know how to call them"_ He wished that he could show her what the cells look like and in a matter of seconds one of the images of his cells appeared in front of him. Almost like a faded picture on a computer screen that was set on low resolution.**

 ** _"How did you do that?"_** she wanted to know because she was sick and tired of this void and maybe wanted to bring some more color in her life.

 ** _"I know I'm dreaming. Which means I can control this environment to some extent. But I cannot control the place. That seems to be from your dream, or whatever you might want to call this. I know for a fact people in a coma don't dream so …"_** She seemed really disappointed but tried anyway to think of something that would not be a large void in the middle of nowhere, but it didn't work **_"I can't change it. Maybe since we are both dreaming the environment can be controlled or changed if we try? How about we try that"_** he told her

 ** _"Sure. I'm game if you are. While this void might look cool to you, I have been stuck here for a period of time that I cannot measure. It feels like I have been here forever. It's time for a change"_** She replied. Barry took her hand and felt the familiar electricity he felt before in the outside world and then he thought of his family's cabin in the mountains. Sure enough, the environment started to change. It gave way to a beautiful pine forest surrounded by white snow peaks. They were in the back yard of a small log cottage, which contained some benches, a swing and a table. In the distance, there was a pontoon with a small boat on a blue azure lake. The sun was somewhere around afternoon and the lake breeze was flowing through her hair.

 ** _"Where's this, Barry?"_** the doctor asked him

 ** _"This is my father's cottage in the mountains. Some of my best childhood memories are here. Even after what happened"_ **he responded with a large smile. What he didn't realize is that they had changed clothes too. She was wearing a light azure sleeveless summer dress with a chestnut colored sash around her waist. While he was looking at her he made the observation in his thoughts that she looked beautiful and that the sash was the same color as her hair. As for him, he wore black denim pants with a blood red shirt and shoes. He forgot that his thoughts could be heard as he let himself bask in the beauty of the place. She heard it all right and she blushed, not wanting to bring up something that would probably make it a bit awkward.

 ** _"This is so much better compared to that void I was in. So tell me, what kind of tests did you run and what are your theories about what's happening to our bodies. You might have my knowledge, but as you know, two heads are better than one. Maybe I can help you with something or give you some ideas that you can run once you wake up"_** She was trying to be of assistance, even when in a coma. It was understandable that she was trying to help as best she could. Barry thanked the stars he had a photographic memory and made appear some whiteboards to which he had put the pictures of the cells from the tests he had run.

 ** _"Your guess is as good as mine, Caitlin. All I have found out until now is what I have already told you. Also that our bodies seem to be stuck in a constant flux of cellular regeneration. Which would be impossible because we both know how much energy it takes a cell to regenerate, yet … they seem to have that energy"_** Barry stated with his eyes staring at one of the whiteboards **" _True, this is what I found out in one day, which is probably not even beginning to scratch the surface. You see, I only woke up this morning. Cisco thought it was something to put my favorite song on. I don't know if that was the desired effect, but that happened"_** She was stunned, but after a bit, the stun gave way to admiration. He had the knowledge just one day and managed to find out quite a lot, even thought it was nowhere near the answer they both sought. He had managed to incorporate some information that was completely new to him and use it effectively in his research. The man was most definitely a genius in disguise, other people even if they had all that knowledge they either could not process it, or not understand it in order to use it.

 ** _"Wait, you managed to do this in a day? Were you not out of the office at all?"_** she asked quite surprised that the CSI used his time for study

 ** _"No. I told Joe and Iris not to reveal the fact that I was awake yet. I wanted to make sure you wake up as well or at least try to figure out what was happening"_** She could hear the guilt in his voice. **" _Who knows we might both die from damaged cells, spontaneous cellular degeneration, brain damage or something else"_** his worry came to the surface as well.

 ** _"You know it's not your fault that I'm in a coma, right?"_** she questioned him seeing his face droop after what he said.

 ** _"How is it not my fault? If I hadn't called you to the precinct you wouldn't be in a bed with machines stuck to you. You might be the one out there and me the one in here. Which to be honest sounds about right"_** he remembered the flashes that he had earlier but the images did not present themselves in this environment at all. It was as if they were memories, but not. Something he could not share with anyone except himself.

 ** _"Barry, stop. I made the choice to come to the lab when you called. If you go about thinking like you are then I am as much at fault as you are. Do not guilt yourself into thinking you did this to me. How about you get rid of that feeling and maybe we can figure something out together while we're in here. You only have limited time. If this is indeed a dream they you will wake up at one point which means you will disappear from this dream scape"_** She saw a dopey grin on his face forming and then a genuine smile took its place. She realized how much she enjoyed that smile, it was bright and careless and without knowing, it made her ordeal just that much easier to bear. It was strange for her, she had seen other people smile and it never had this much of an effect on her, suddenly she felt hopeful, like she would not be stuck here for the rest of eternity, but she would be able to wake up thanks to Barry.

 ** _"I do intend to come back. Once I find out how in the blazes I made it here the first time. It's not every day I manage to make contact with a comatose person in their dreams"_** He took his place in front of a whiteboard took a marker and adopted a scientific face, which rather made her giggle, but in a way he would not notice. Even in dreams, she was guarded and controlled her outbursts **" _All right, Cait. Let's figure out a way to get you out of here"_**

She was baffled by what he called her. That name was something only her family would use. Most of all Ronnie since he was a bit of a lazy ass and always shortened names, but she didn't say anything. That nickname coming out of his mouth was not bothering her at all, but she decided to tease him about it nonetheless, which was out of character for her because she never teased guys at all.

 ** _"Let me guess, you are too much of a lazy ass to call me by my name so you already gave me a shorter nickname?"_** she chuckled at him

 ** _"Why, you don't like it? If so then I can just call you Caitlin, no problem"_**

 ** _"No, its fine, you can call me Cait, Barry"_**

 ** _"It will be our thing, Dr. Snow"_** Barry replied in a playful manner with a large grin

 ** _"We do not have a thing, Mr. Allen"_** Caitlin smiled back

 ** _"Maybe we should, I mean we are stuck in a dream world where a comatose bio engineer and a sleeping CSI try to unravel the criminal mind of the universe, to find out how they got here and how one gets out. So … why not?"_** They both started to laugh as they began working and sharing ideas without any semblance of time actually passing around them. After what seemed to be hours had passed, they could both hear a voice coming into the peaceful landscape.

 **"Barry, wake up man"** It was Cisco, probably trying to wake up the sleeping Barry in the chair in the outside world.

 ** _"I guess this is my cue to disappear"_** he smiled toward Caitlin **" _Thank you for the ideas on what to run. I'll go right to that as soon as I wake up"_** his stomach gave a loud grumble to which she started to chuckle **" _After I have something to eat apparently"_** he added.

 ** _"Barry, thank you for the nice environment, but"_ **her voice sounded a bit scared **" _will I see you again after this? I mean_** _"_ she stuttered a bit biting her lower lip **" _this place does get kind of lonely, not that I'm lonely or anything, but …"_**

 ** _"Yes, I'll try to come visit and keep you company"_** he finished her thought. **" _As soon as I actually know how to come back, it's not like any of this was planned or anything. Do not worry, Cait. You won't get rid of me that easily"_** Barry grinned

 **"Barry, come on man, wake up. I brought coffee"** the voice could be heard again

 ** _"All right. Thank you"_** She sighed **_"You should get up before Cisco decides to play pranks and pull the chair from under you. I guess I'll be seeing you around, Barry"_**

 ** _"Yes you will, Cait, yes you will"_** he gave her one of his patented dopey grins and a genuine smile **_"We'll figure this out. If not, at least you know there's someone out there to take care of you. I can at least promise you that"_** then he disappeared.

His smile and carelessness helped Caitlin come to terms that she might not even wake up from her coma, this thought scared her terribly even though, thinking about him visiting once in a while somehow made her feel a bit better. The promise he made that he would take care of her in the outside world came as a surprise, but it was welcomed one. It made her feel safer knowing that he was around. Picking up a notepad that Barry left behind she started to examine the pictures on the boards and make notes.

 ** _"At least if I got nothing to do, this will keep me busy for a while"_** she thought **" _or at least until Barry comes back"_** That thought was still in her mind and without knowing her cheeks blushed at the idea, slowly returning to normal as she started to be engrossed in work.

Barry woke up to the smell of fresh coffee and donuts. Cisco already put a box on the console next to him and was shaking him furiously, as if something was about to fall on his head.

 ** _"_ I'm up. I'm up" **He grumbled as Cisco stopped shaking him **"God damn it, Cisco. That's no way to wake someone up in the morning"** Barry saw the coffee and the donuts **"But THAT is. Thank you"** he smiled.

 **"No problem, Barry. I see you were busy last night?"** he chuckled nodding to his hand that was still holding Caitlin's.

 **"She was having nightmares I think. She started crying in the middle of the night. Not actual crying, but you get it. When I took her hand she calmed down"** Barry tried to explain without getting Cisco to think that something actually happened, but almost immediately realized that the shorty engineer was just teasing him.

 **"Can people in comas have nightmares? I read that their thought processes are shut down in that state"** He looked at Barry kind of asking for an explanation, since it was not in his area of expertise.

 **"Nothing of what I know right now points to that. Their higher brain functions are shut down. I'm not sure, but I think some part of the subconscious still functions. So … your guess is as good as mine, since we know where dreams are processed, but we don't actually know where they come from. All I know at this time is that she calmed down almost instantly when I took her hand, so her brain is processing external stimuli even in her state"** Barry answered truthfully.

 **"Good morning, Mr. Allen"** Harrison Wells just entered the Cortex and was watching him and Cisco intently **"Did you manage to get some answers from all the tests you ran yesterday?"**

 **"Good morning, Dr. Wells. Some answers yes, but, as you know, when science is concerned, with more answers come even more questions, to be honest"** he scratched his head.

 **"How do you intend to proceed?"** the question came from the crippled scientist

 **"I have other tests I want to run on both of us. Even though the same bolt of lightning hit us both, the effect seems to not be the same. Beside the whole ... knowledge duplication thing"** Barry decided to not let Cisco and Wells in on the dream trip he had had the night before. It was unbelievable even to him, he had no idea how to replicate it and furthermore it was something that was scientifically unprovable. It might just make the two men think that he was completely off his rocker rather than inspire the trust of being able to take care of himself and Caitlin.

 **"I see. Can you show me what you have found until now though? I might be able to offer some hypotheses and maybe a good idea or two"** he offered.

 **"Of course. First, Cisco as far as I remembered from our previous meeting, you`re an engineer. Correct?"** Barry asked

 **"Yep. I build the cool toys. Why? Do you need something?"** The engineer asked

 **"Yes, can you build me a vambrace with a touch display that feeds on the data from Caitlin's vitals? Also I would need temperature and lighting control of the cortex and the med bay"** he answered to the short man who had a large smile on his face.

 **"Sure, how much of a range do you want it to have?"**

 **"As large as you can make it, at least covering Central City. I need to be able to monitor her even if I go out for coffee or go home and change. The range is not urgent, I don't intend to leave the lab until she wakes up"** Barry answered

 **"Of Course. I can do that. But why would you need temperature and lighting controls?"** Cisco had no idea of the event that transpired the other day, but he was curious nonetheless.

 **"Lighting in case I want to sleep. Because I'm lazy"** he smiled **"And temperature, because yesterday after you brought me the blanket and I tried to warm Caitlin up, her body took it very badly. I think she needs cooler environments to get better. I have to test that one for now, but I still need the controls"**

 **"You got it, Barry. I'll get right on that"** he walked toward the Cortex exit then turned around **"Thank you for taking care of Caitlin. Usually in any medical emergency she's the person we run to, but she's the one sick now and Physician Heal Thyself doesn't really work, when said physician is in a coma"**

 **"Hey, I'm glad I can. Besides it gives me an excuse to do all this cool stuff"** as he pointed of the array of medical equipment on the workbench. Cisco walked out smiling to himself that Barry was just like him and Caitlin. A fellow scientist, or as he would be called sometimes a "science nerd"

Barry and Dr. Wells started going over all his test results as well as starting a few new ones that Caitlin suggested the night before in the dream. They were all running when Joe walked into the room with a box of donuts and a pizza. The two scientists completely lost track of time, when Barry looked up he saw that is was already past 1 PM.

 **"Hey, Bar. Hello, Dr. Wells"** Joe chimed in from the door putting the food down on a table.

 **"Hello, Detective West"** Wells responded with his eyes down a microscope showing some of Barry's cells.

 **"Hey, Joe. I see you brought food. How's everything?"**

 **"Nothing interesting happened today, yesterday after I left however, that's another story"** he chuckled. **"We had a robbery alert. However, when we got on the scene, everything was cleared out. Whoever did that was definitely a professional"**

 **"Did they leave any sort of evidence at the crime scene?"** the CSI asked, as it was almost second nature to at least be informed.

 **"None that we've found. As you know our star CSI is still in a coma and his replacement isn't doing us any favors either"** Joe sighed and sat down in one of the chairs already present in the room.

 **"Say what now?"** Barry asked before realizing what Joe was saying **"Oh, yeah. I'm definitely still in a coma aren't I? Since when did I become the star CSI of the CCPD?"**

 **"Since most if not all the cases you`ve worked on could not be thrown out because of police negligence in gathering evidence or anything related to how the evidence was handled or analyzed "** Barry felt proud of himself right then and there. Even though he only became a CSI to get his father out of prison for a murder he did not commit, but whom everyone else thought he did, he was happy to know that doing the job he loved was helping other people and putting criminals behind bars. Harrison Wells rolled at Barry's side.

 **"I have to be downtown in an hour for a lecture so I will have to leave you to your work, Barry. I might not be back today so good luck. Goodbye detective West, have a pleasant day"** he offered as he rolled out of the cortex going outside.

 **"That is one strange man"** Joe quipped **"but is he helpful in any way considering the work you`re doing here?"**

 **"Yes, he managed to give me a theory about how the dark matter from the particle accelerator might have affected our cells. So I'm running with that for now"** he answered. They say down to eat, Barry finishing the pizza in record time, also stealing some of the donuts that Joe bought for himself.

 **"Hey! You have a whole pizza. The best you can do is leave me some of those"**

 **"But I was hungry"** Barry replied making a pouty face and puppy dog eyes. They finished their meal and he decided to tell Joe what happened. He trusted him and even if he thought that Barry went mad, he would still be convinced that he would do the right thing.

 **"Joe, something strange happened last night. Just hear me out and don't freak"**

 **"What did you do, Barry?"** the detective looked at him strangely

 **"Last night when I fell asleep, somehow I ended up in a shared dream with Caitlin. We actually talked and shared ideas. Some of the tests that are running now are actually from the input that she gave me last night"** He told him truthfully

 **"What?"** Joe's eyes were saucers by the end of that sentence **"Now you`re dreaming about her? That's what I call being fast at having a crush"** he laughed

 **"I wasn't dreaming about her. It was her. She told me things that I had no way of knowing. She described the day before the accident, the robbery and it was all from her point of view. There was no way I would have that information" **Barry stated bluntly and reinforced his idea.

 **"So … you`re saying that you met a comatose woman … in a dream … where you discussed with her the fact that she's in a coma and she actually gave your ideas on what tests to run to try to make her better? Did I get that correctly?"** Joe summarized the whole thing and put it as simply as he could.

 **"See? The way you said that just makes me seem like I'm crazy"** Barry let out a sigh **"But yes, that's exactly what happened"**

 **"I don't know, Bar. It's not like I have a degree in medicine. But if you can communicate with her doesn't that mean that she is still in there somewhere and still alive?"** the tall man managed to somehow show Barry a positive aspect.

 **"Yes, I would assume so, Joe"**

 **"Then that is something I would call a win. Wouldn't you? I mean instead of asking yourself if she's still in there, now you know and you can double your efforts to try to wake her up"** The way that Joe put a spin on things to make them simple made Barry realize he was right. He did know that she was still in there somewhere, he did know she was still alive and not brain dead and now he would have even more of a reason to double his efforts into getting her out of that coma.

 **"Thanks, Joe. That helped"** he smiled to his foster father

 **"I'm glad. I also told Henry you were awake and told him that for now we keep it under wraps so you can't come visit until this is done"** the detective grinned

 **"I'm guessing he was pretty disappointed about me not going to visit, wasn't he?"** Barry replied after a few seconds of thinking

 **"No. He said to let you know that he knows you`re trying to do the right thing and not to worry about him. Just drop by whenever you "wake" from your coma"** Joe air quoted Henry. The young CSI was surprised about his father's resolve and the fact that he was trusting him with his actions even though he did not tell Joe everything, which meant Henry had no way of knowing the whole story. Despite this, he decided to trust him to make the correct choice.

 **"All right, Bar. I need to get back to the precinct. If there is something else you need just give me a call"** the detective smiled at him

 **"Joe, there is one last thing I wanted to ask. Do you know if Iris is dating someone?"** Barry decided to try to put his thoughts at rest. The images that he had the day before that looked like memories said that Iris was dating Eddie Thawne. He realized that even if she was dating him, the memories showed him that Joe wouldn't know about it, but it was a bit too late. He had already asked the question.

 **"You still hung up on her, huh?"** Joe chuckled and Barry gave him an eye roll **"Yes, I do believe she is dating someone, but I have no idea who it is. She has been keeping that a secret from me and every time that subject comes up she starts to dodge the question"**

 **"I guess you could say I'm still hung up on her, but nowhere near like I was a few years ago. To be fair the last few days there's only one person that I`ve been thinking about and that person is not Iris"** Barry told Joe who was pleasantly surprised.

 **" _Her,_ right?" **the detective pointed at the surgical bed Caitlin was in

 **"Yes"** He admitted.

 **"I still think this is the fastest I've seen you crush on anyone, even Iris. I mean you have known her for what? A day?"** The detective smiled leaving Barry with a shocked face **"You were always a sucker for beautiful women, especially those that couldn't return your feelings"** The grin on his face became wider as he strolled out of the cortex leaving the CSI with his jaw on the floor.

As Barry, working diligently in the Cortex, was continuing to try to figure out what had happened to him and the doctor, Cisco was tinkering away in his lab working on the vambrace Barry asked him to build. He thought that it didn't need armor or anything related to that. Why would that be a thing, it's not like Barry was a superhero.

He included a large flexible touch screen that could be bent on the arm, a separate set of sensors that would be reading the wearer's vitals and alert them of any sort of problem, standard stuff.

The only thing he had a problem with was a power source. The display was too large and the touch screen would eat a lot of power. Not to mention the constant connectivity needed to the lab network or to the satellite network to keep the updates rolling, so he decided to make two of them. That way as long as Barry was in the lab, the vambraces would transmit their information directly one to the other without needing a third transport system, which cut down on the power usage.

The power cell was a different story. Cisco already had the schematics to the nanite cell that was stolen, yet that was still too big for anything remotely fitting. So he had to start from scratch and managed to build a small enough power cell that he predicted would need to be charged one time every week even if the entire array of sensors and the harshest connectivity was activated. Along with the vitals screen never turned off. It was a marvel of engineering and he scoffed at himself for not being able to come up with that sooner.

A few hours later, he had both things built and put on his workbench feeling really proud of them. He put the tech into a leather type of container that looked more like an archer's bracer than an actual vambrace. However, it would do nonetheless. He had really outdid himself this time. He took them and went back to the Cortex, greeting the person that was reading something at one of the stations.

 **"Hey Barry. You still working?"**

 **"Hey Cisco, yeah, I have some new ideas on what happened to us, provided to me by …"** he stopped, forgetting he didn't want to tell Cisco about the whole **"dream trip"** so he continued **"having a deeper understanding of the knowledge I was given from Caitlin's mind"**

 **"That's cool. Remember you asked me to build you something this morning? ta daa"** Cisco showed him the two bracers **"They both have sensors so you can monitor Caitlin directly with the device. They both communicate as long as you are in proximity of one another and they both have temperature and lighting control for the Cortex and the Med bay. Also if you get out of the lab, both of them switch to satellite mode so you can keep getting regular updates even if you are not anywhere near the structure. I know you said that the range extension is not urgent, but I thought if I'm to build something once, I'd better build it well the first time"**

 **"Wow. You seriously did this in a day? Cisco you rock!"** Barry's eyes lit up and then he realized **"If the bracer already has sensors, does that mean I can take off Caitlin the multitude of wires she already has on her?"**

 **"Yes, that's why I built two of them. Even if she's in a coma, the wires can't be comfortable and the bracers can communicate with the different monitors as well. It's all Wireless, baby"** the engineer quipped with a large smile on his face

He stood in awe at the person who had managed to build something which seemed so complicated to him in such a short amount of time. It seemed indeed that STAR was full of brilliant minds. Caitlin first and now Cisco. He was not counting Dr. Wells. He was the founder of STAR and he put him in a completely different category all together. He took one of the bracers and put it on himself and the display came to life. All his vitals were normal, except for a slight increase in his pulse. He went over to Caitlin and started disconnecting the wires and taking her off all the machines and putting the second bracer on her. His own device vibrated and a second set of vitals appeared beneath his.

 **"It works"** he said happily

 **"Of course it works"** Cisco retorted **"What do you think this is… home improvement?"** somehow the reference completely overshot Barry.

 **"Thank you for this, Cisco. Now I can keep an eye on her while I'm doing my work, without having to go back and forth to the consoles. This is really handy, especially if she has any seizures. Do the bracers also record the vitals somewhere?"** Barry said with an excited tone.

 **"Yes, they are going to be on our servers. You can find them there if you want them. I just store the last 48 hours for now since there is a very large amount of data from all the sensors. However, if you need more than that. I'm sure I can whip something up"** he grinned **"And don't thank me, you are trying your best to make sure she is ok. She is a very good friend of mine so whatever I can do for you, whenever, just ask"** the engineer replied sternly.

Barry nodded knowing that he could count on Cisco from now on about everything regarding gadgets or anything else remotely weird that he might need. Somehow, after doing this so fast, he was sure that the engineer would be able to complete almost anything as long as it meant helping his friend.

 **"By the way, I was on my way to Big Belly Burger to get myself some dinner. Do you want something?"** Cisco inquired

 **"Yes please, I'm famished"** Barry found that strange since he had eaten a whole pizza at lunch including some donuts. That made him wonder what kind of metabolism him and Caitlin now had. She hadn't been eating, but for him the nickname Cisco gave him in jest **"Food Vacuum"** seemed to be accurate. He was eating more and more, yet he looked better than he ever looked. He even had abs as he noted that one time in the mirror after changing his shirt.

Cisco came back an hour later with a full order, two Big Belly Burgers with cheese and guacamole, fries and bacon and two strawberry milkshakes. They put everything on one of the tables in the Cortex and started to eat, Barry mostly eating everything while Cisco looked at him in awe.

 **"You know that nickname I used for you yesterday seems to be the truth. You do eat a lot. Did you do any sort of tests to see if your metabolism has been changed in any way after the lightning strike?"** Cisco offered an idea, which was something that Barry thought of himself, but even the engineer thought the same

 **"Not yet, I did indeed think of that, except I wanted to run something else first. I'll do that later"** Barry assured the engineer that his idea would not go to waste.

 **"All right. Well I'm going home for the night. If you want to get some rest, I put a bed in the back room in case you want to be close to Caitlin. Also … there is something that I included in the bracers, for … heavy sleepers like yourself"** He had remembered that Barry was a heavy sleeper and that surprised him a lot. He only mentioned it once to the engineer, and only in passing, but he already included that into his attention to detail.

 **"So… what is it?"** Barry asked

 **"There's a setting in the options menu. If you tie your bracer to another set of vitals, the moment something is wrong with that set of vitals instead of producing an alarm it will send a slight pulse of energy in your arm and will continue to vibrate until you touch the screen. Since I did not want to electrocute you, the intensity of the pulses is programmable as well"** The engineer showed him all the options he was talking about including the fact that the electric pulse was set to the lowest setting and there was a test button.

 **"What's the test button for?"**

 **"Well, I thought you would want to test the pulse first before frying yourself right?"** the engineer started to laugh making Barry realize he was right

 **"Oh, right. Thank you Cisco, this will make sure I'm awake if she has issues"**

 **"Like I said before. No need to thank me, you`re the one spending all day here trying to get her out of that coma. Consider it as being even"** the short man gave him a smile **"Good night, Barry. Ill check on you both in the morning"**

 **"Night, Cisco"**

Having set his bracer on the so-called **"Night Mode"** and setting up a pulse strong enough to wake him if necessary, Barry started to think that since it was close to bedtime how he would get back to the **"dream world"** so he could talk to Caitlin again.

He started to go over what he did last night in his head and did everything exactly the same, except not using the tablet because he already had the bracer which he could use to monitor the vitals, he put his hand over hers and closed his eyes.

After a while, he was back at the cottage in the mountains, but he did not appear in the same place as he did before. Instead, he was closer to the cottage looking out to the lake, seeing Caitlin at the same table he left her back when he woke up. Only this time there were lots more paper stacks on it as well as some machines churning out results.

She had changed. She wore a white shirt with black buttons and the same pencil skirt as he had seen her in the day of the robbery and a lab coat. Which was strange because the weather seemed fine. He looked underdressed for the occasion and without realizing what he thought, his clothes changed to something more stylish. Black denim jeans with a dark blue shirt. The lab coat seemed necessary even though it did not offer much.

Even in the _"stuck up scientist outfit"_ as he called it, she was still beautiful. Her chestnut colored curls were swaying in the wind almost hypnotizing him. Something was different though. In her hair now some silver white streaks had appeared. Shrugging that off as maybe some sort of preference from her and realizing the fact that he was staring at her he corrected his demeanor and approached the table.

 **" _Hey Cait, whatcha doin'?"_** he gave her a goofy smile as she turned toward him

 ** _"Barry! You came back?! I mean sure you came back. I was sure you'd come back. How did you come back?"_** her stuttering and weird way of phrasing things like she was actually baffled by his presence made him smile even more.

 ** _"It seems that the requirement for us to actually be here is me being near you with any sort of bodily contact"_** The CSI offered her the truth

 ** _"Bodily contact?"_** She could feel herself blushing **" _Barry Allen, what sort of bodily contact?"_**

 ** _"Well last night I fell asleep holding your hand I don't know what you were dreaming or thinking in that big void, but you were crying. The moment I took your hand it was like you knew someone was there and you instantly stopped and calmed down. Tonight I did the same. I dozed off earlier in the chair at the DNA sequencer and nothing happened. So I think the actual contact is the answer to us actually meeting like this"_** the answer came

 ** _"Must be something related to the fact that we were both struck by the same bold of lightning and we were in physical contact when it happened"_** she concluded remembering the night of the accident, when something pushed her and she fell over to Barry touching him before everything went black. He looked over at the table and was a bit surprised by what he saw there. Everything that happened during the day related to their condition had appeared. His tests, the results, the talk with Dr. Wells and the schematics for the bracers Cisco made for him so he could keep an eye on her more closely.

 **_"Thank you for that. I had no idea you were taking my care so seriously"_** she chimed in disrupting his thoughts.

 ** _"What are you referring to?"_** he inquired with a smile

 ** _"These bracers you had Cisco make. You even took precautions to give yourself shocks to wake up if something happened to me while you slept"_** She was truly grateful to him doing this. The beautiful smile on her face conferred this fact pretty clearly. He smiled back and turned to the boards

 ** _"How did this even get here? This is what happened today"_** Barry inquired very surprised

 ** _"I do not know. I felt something, like someone was touching me and then in an instant these images appeared with everything. Then later, it happened again"_** she confessed. She was as bewildered as he was. He thought to himself that the only person who could touch her in the outside world was him. He did so while disconnecting her from the wires and later on while putting the monitoring bracer on her. This meant the connection was active even if he was awake. All he had to do is touch her for the connection to activate and she was getting fed information in this dream world from his own mind as this happened. He stood there with his jaw almost falling to the floor when he realized this.

 ** _"What?"_** she inquired seeing the face he had made after a bit of thought.

 ** _"I took you off the machines today. The bracer monitors your vitals, so the wires weren't needed anymore and later I put the device on you. Those are the two times I touched you. That seems to coincide with you getting these "updates" on the outside world"_** he stated bluntly not believing it himself

 ** _"That means …"_** he was her only connection to the outside ** _". Ok… wow …"_** now it was her turn for the jaw falling portion of this exercise. It was strange for her. She was always guarded and cold, her internal shields were raised all the time and the scientific cold demeanor she was usually wearing while in the outside world could not help her in this place. She depended on Barry Allen for information that would keep her sane and data to keep her working on their problem. She did not like that, not one bit, but one look at him and that didn't matter. In a way she was happy it was him, imagine having that kind of link with Cisco. She loved the engineer like a brother, but that thought made her shrug, she would bet her life the only use that link would have gotten was for him to get his puns across.

They both looked at each other in bewilderment, but decided to shrug it off for the time being as Barry sat down near Caitlin and they started exchanging notes on what might have happened to them. As the third genius in the room, she told him bluntly to test both their metabolisms. He agreed and told her that she would do that first thing in the morning.

 ** _"Cait, I've been meaning to ask you something. From the first time when we met back the day of the robbery there was something that was stuck in the back of my mind"_** Barry told her as they were working

 ** _"Sure. Ask away"_** She answered knowing that she might be exposing herself to personal questions that she didn't like answering, but took a risk.

 ** _"Tell me, have you ever lived in Central City before and by that I mean sometime when you were a child?"_** Barry asked bluntly

 ** _"Yes. After my dad died for about a year. I think I know why you asked. I remember meeting someone called Barry Allen back when I was here. I helped him get off the sidewalk after some bullies had beaten him, however I do not remember much of anything else from that time. It's at the most a blur"_** She replied.

 ** _"Then I was right, that was you I was remembering. I didn't say anything till now because you looked so different back then. Short hair, braces and a pair of large glasses makes a world of difference for something that happened more than a decade ago"_** He smiled.

 ** _"I had the same feeling when you told me your name, but I put it behind me because I thought there could be a lot more persons with the same name in the world and I didn't want to look crazy asking an unknown person about something like that"_** She confessed.

 ** _"Well, nice to meet you again, Caitlin Snow"_** he smiled and extended a hand, which she shook.

 ** _"The feeling is mutual, Barry Allen. I still don't like bullies"_** she chuckled as the two restarted their work.

Unknown to them someone was at the tree line entering the forest, watching their every move. That someone had been there for quite a long time but the trees were masking the silhouette and the two didn't notice it. Turning toward the forest the shadowy figure went back to a small hut that was constructed at the edge of the valley without being seen but not before her tracks and the tree, which was touched turned to ice. The glacial trail that led into the forest soon turned back to normal. The two scientists were so far dug into their work, that they didn't even notice anything changing.


	4. Awakening

It was a normal morning in the Cortex at STAR labs. Almost 6 months after he had woken up, Barry Allen managed to get most of the information he could get from every test he could fathom to run. When he ran out of tests, he started to formulate hypotheses. Some of them proved true, like the fact that both their metabolisms were severely sped up, which is why he had been feeding Caitlin intravenously for the last 3 or so months. The vitamin shots and the compound chemicals that he managed to synthesize, most on his own but some with the help of his daily conversations with Caitlin made her system adjust to its new conditions.

Cisco was here as well, tinkering on some of his toys. Barry had asked him to make something that would be able to scan cells in order to give out a warning if they were depleted of power or not.

It had become a habit of his to play music while he was working. Usually Cisco was never around the cortex, he was in his lab and Dr. Wells was picking himself up after his spinal injury, so he was mostly never around. Nonetheless, the two would offer assistance anytime they could. As for Cisco, he didn't matter if it was the middle of the night or the first crack of dawn, he was always there if Barry needed something for himself or for Caitlin. The two grew closer as the time passed, becoming good friends. Some days Cisco would bring over movies and snacks to tear Barry away from his work, just to remind him that he has a life, or at least a semblance of one, even though for those outside of STAR Labs, he was still in a coma.

As his playlist went on a gleeful iteration of **"Summer Lovin' "** made its way in the ears of our two listeners, he started humming it out of the corner of his mouth, before actually starting to sing. Cisco sat there and listened to him, surprised that the CSI had such a beautiful singing voice.

From far away, in the endless space that she was now in, Caitlin heard something. It was the indeterminate sound of a song that was very familiar to her, but it wasn't clear who was singing. It was as if the voice itself was pulling her, gnawing at her very existence, drawing her to the unknown, out from her dream. The mental space started to fill with echoes of the beautiful melody. She knew, for a fact, that Cisco had a nice voice, but this didn't sound like him. She closed her eyes lying on the grass and let her mind drift, but when she opened them, slowly, taking in her surroundings, she was somewhere else. The familiar look of the cortex stunned her. The light was almost burning in its brightness. Her gaze did not have to stray long, right in front of her bed, she saw Barry. He was fidgeting away at a blood panel and checking his bracer about once a minute. She the realized that she had the same device on her arm. She could not quite remember why that was there but glimpses in her dreams told her that it was his way of monitoring her no matter if they were around or not.

 ** _"Barry kept his promise. He was here all along. I am back"_** she told herself, somehow putting her at peace. She felt herself getting stronger at the sight of the man that promised, even with all the odds against him, which he will take care of her. The next moment Barry checked his bracer seeing that the BP was up and her pulse was up as well. As easy as that transition might have gone, she was still scared and that showed. Immediately his green eyes were trained directly on the bed. She looked at him and threw him a faint smile. She was back, in the world of the living, guided through the darkness by some she barely knew, a promise and a pair of unforgettable green eyes.

 **"OH, MY, GOD!"** Cisco almost yelled. **"You're awake?"** he came over in a heartbeat checking her to see if it was true. Barry took a small flashlight and went straight to Caitlin as he was reading the screen.

 **"Bp 130/70, Pulse 95, Blood Ox 99%"** he took the flashlight and illuminated Caitlin's eyes. The light was blinding making her wince **"Pupils are normal and reactive to light. Slight discoloration of the epidermis due to lower body temperature"** He went back to the workstation to leave his gear. **"Welcome back, Cait, to the world of the living"** Barry smiled at her and took her hand into his. The touch was so familiar yet, so foreign the heat coming off him giving her power and stability. Just enough to be able to focus. His smile however, that beautiful ditzy no worries smile that had fascinated her before, made her feel like she came back from the dead, right then and there. She was extremely happy to be able to feel his hand in hers, the proper human contact in months.

 **"Thank you, Barry. I see you kept your promise"** she gave a weak smile. Cisco was looking at the two as if they were straight out of a sitcom.

 **"Promise? What promise? Caitlin is there something you aren't telling me? In addition, how are you not getting mad at how he just called you? I remember you giving Ronnie hell for that every time you could"** he pouted.

 **"Oh, so much Cisco, oh so much. I gave him permission to call me that, that's why I'm not giving him a stern talking to. Now is not the time, so be quiet for a minute. I need to wake up properly, also I really need to go to pee"** she replied with a meek grin on her face.

 **"She's back"** the engineer looked at his friend and saw the way she cut him off.

 **"Cisco, she needs to eat. Her blood glucose level is very low, there was only so much I could do with IV's because of our sped up metabolism. Mind taking a ride to Big Belly Burger and bring back 6 burgers with everything?"** Barry turned to the engineer

 **"God, Caitlin, it's so good to see you awake. I thought you might never wake up. That was really scary"** Cisco almost sang and his face had plastered a thousand watt smile, walking over to her and giving her a strong hug **"Yeah, sure, Barry. Its lunchtime anyway. Want me to get you your usual as well since I'm there? I could use some fatty goodness myself and a strong coffee"**

 **"Wait, you mean those 6 burgers with everything are just for me?"** Caitlin snorted **"I could never eat even one order with full toppings. I'm pretty sure just one is enough"**

 **"Trust me, Cait. Just one is definitely not enough. Especially not in your condition, and if you can't eat it, then I will or Cisco. And yes, thank you, my usual is fine"** Barry interjected in their conversation. Caitlin didn't doubt him at all. She knew the amount of work he put in finding out what was happening to them.

 **"Barry, so ... does that mean you're ready to "wake up" too?"** Cisco asked on his way out.

 **"Not really sure, but it's a definite maybe"** he smiled, he pushed a glowing button on his bracer **"Dr. Wells, our sleeping beauty is awake"**

 **"That is wonderful news. I'm on my way"** a slow voice could be heard over the com system. Caitlin however stood there, blushing furiously and trying to hide her face from Barry. He had called her beautiful and while the metaphor wasn't lost on her, she immediately reacted to the compliment and …what he did next completely killed the mood.

 **"I'm going to need you to urinate in this"** as he presented her with a specimen cup

 **"Not right this second"** she replied and put it on the nightstand as she tried to get up. Her hospital gown was put backward allowing Barry to fiddle with the IV's and the monitors on her chest so when she got up she could see herself in the mirror.

 **"Lightning gave me abs?"** she looked over at Barry. He smiled and raised his shirt; she could see that he had them too.

 **"Yep. Lightning gave US abs. Our bodies are in a constant state of cellular regeneration. Which means fat gets used by our metabolisms extremely fast"** he replied, somehow not realizing he's staring at her toned stomach.

 **"I thought you might need clothes so on the chair I usually sit there's a pair of STAR sweatpants and a shirt for you to wear until you can get proper attire"** He smiled as he turned back to his workstation. She went back in the enclosed space and changed just in time for Harrison Wells to **"roll in"** the room.

 **"I'm glad you`re back from your slumber, Dr. Snow, you had us all very worried. Except Barry, who for some reason seemed pretty calm, like he somehow knew that you were going to wake up"** he eyed Barry intently, hoping to get some information out of the young man, but he was silent. Caitlin gave a nod and mouthed a thank you to Barry for being thoughtful enough to get her clothes, after which she responded calmly

 **"Thank you, Dr. Wells. This whole ... experience was frightening. Coma patients hear way more than you think. I know the neuroscience studies say otherwise, that the processing part of the brain is closed, the reasoning is not there and you cannot interpret writing and other things because those parts are closed, but I could hear at times fragments of discussion, music and even laughter, managing to understand everything. My brain was shut down, but my senses were still feeding information to my subconscious, that dealing with them as it could. That's how I knew that there was always someone here. Barry, Cisco or yourself. I'm not saying the studies are wrong, this could all be because of the lightning, but that is what happened. Now, if you'll excuse me, I REALLY need to go pee."** As she moved, suddenly the world went into a standstill and she was propelled forward at a speed she could not think possible, right into Barry's arms, who had noticed the movement and sped up in front of her to act like a buffer so that she wouldn't be injured. The impact hit him like a truck as the two of them hit the back wall to the entrance of the Cortex. A soon as that happened, a strange sound was heard and Barry made a pained face.

 **"Ouch"** Barry whined **"First day and you manage to dislocate my shoulder? To what do I owe the honor."**

 **"What, how? When? How did you do that? How did I do that ?!"** she looked at him her eyes almost screaming, but enjoying his arms around her. She thought back to the lab where she wasn't at all comfortable when he shielded her from the explosion. This time, however she enjoyed the feeling of another human being immensely and the fact that was Barry, made her even happier. The six months of small touches and smiles and the fact that he was always around in her dreams had helped her go past some of her original icy demeanor, at least when it came to him.

 **"Wait, I think I told you already, do you not remember a few nights back when I got you up to speed with our new physiology?"** Barry asked.

 **"No, I'm sorry. It's all a jumble"** she replied trying to remember.

 **"Well then, we have a lot to talk about. But first!"** he handed her the specimen cup

 **"Really, Barry?"** she teased him, knowing full well that she would have done the same in his shoes. She wanted to know everything; she was a scientist after all.

 **"Really, Cait"** he smiled back to her **"I'll be in the Cortex, before you go … can you pop my shoulder back in place though?"** She took his hand and with a powerful tug, the shoulder was back where it was supposed to be. The man turned and hugged her tight, keeping like that for a few minutes even if the shoulder was visibly hindering him **"I'm really glad you pulled through"** he smiled at her. The hug was something that surprised Caitlin at first, but responded to in kind hugging him tight. It felt like home and not home in a dream, it felt like this world was real, and she wanted it to be real.

 **"Thank you, for all you have done"** She replied with a big smile on her face. The two separated and Barry went back into the Cortex wincing because of the pain and grumbling **"I know I told you to pee in a cup, but you could have been a bit gentler in putting my shoulder back, this hurts"** she started laughing at his reply and started to walk as fast as she could toward the toilets.

Half an hour later after Caitlin managed to get her hair in a somewhat order, brush her teeth and drink about half a gallon of water she went back to the Cortex dressed in her usual attire. A black pencil skirt that hugged her thighs in an alluring manner and bright red top. She could not remember when that started, but she always held a fresh change of clothes in her locker, for … emergencies. She was definitely back, but she was very, very hungry.

 **"So, spill it, Barry. What actually happened to us here?"** she said in a demanding tone, but for some reason she sneezed causing an icicle to hit the table that Barry as working on, the force of the throw embedding the icy mass in the top as it would have been a knife.

 **"Easy, Easy. What are you trying to do, decapitate me?"** then turning to her **"well, that's new"**

Caitlin was stupefied. The look on her face was one of shock and horror while she was staring down at her hands, as if she was staring at a pair of deadly weapons. Before she could say anything, she sneezed again, another icy mass being thrown straight at Barry's chest. For him, the world came to a standstill again right before the icicle hit him, his self-defense mechanism made him catch the icicle millimeters from his chest.

 **"Oh my god, Barry. I'm sorry"** she retorted holding her nose, which made her voice so much cuter, as Barry thought.

 **"It's fine. I'm fine. I can move extremely fast… and apparently so can you. I have never actually tried to see how fast, but we seem to have super speed"** Harrison Wells looked at the two with a displeased gleam in his eyes. Almost like he was dealing with two children that were in a snowball battle.

 **"You know, this needs more testing. I have only seen Barry use his speed maybe two times, as for you Dr. Snow, we had an idea about what you could do, but the episode that unfolded before when Barry caught you, means that you have enhanced speed as well"** Caitlin looked at the two not believing what she was hearing.

 **"You mean to say Dr. Wells that I somehow woke up with … superpowers?"** the word she was using was … ridiculous even by her standards.

 **"Yes, Cait. That's precisely what we're saying"** Barry added.

 **"You two were affected by the particle accelerator explosion. Or more accurately by the lightning that hit you"** Wells added.

 **"I'm back!"** Cisco announced as he was entering the room **"And I brought guests"** immediately after him Joe and Iris entered the cortex looking surprised. **"What the frack happened here?"** Cisco noticed the large icicle sticking out of one of the tables

 **"I'll tell you later."** muttered Barry with his hand on his shoulder.

 **"Welcome back, you had us worried there for a while."** Iris told Caitlin. Even though she had not met her officially yet, she was in the lab enough times to have the quaint feeling of knowing her.

 **"Glad you`re awake, Caitlin"** Joe pulled her in for a hug. He would not normally do this, but he had seen how distressed Barry was, his own adoptive son, over this woman, which in turn meant that she was important to him. How or why that was still an unknown to him at this point, but what Barry had done for her, showed maturity. He had stood by her all this time, almost 6 months straight, to take care of her, even at the point that everything seemed hopeless and pointless. It seemed normal to him that his boy would take care of her in the times to come. Caitlin however was taken aback by this blunt showing of affection. Especially since she had never met one of the persons that were now here. She could however remember Detective West, from the morning of the theft, which struck here with even more confusion as the man she barely met two times until now was hugging her like he had missed her for a long time.

 **"Thank you. I don't want to sound rude, but … who are you?"** the doctor looked at the girl visibly surprised that a stranger would act so warm toward her. She was surprised about Detective West too, the way he reacted told her that he had been here a couple of times, but their meetings before this were limited to the theft and that day at the precinct. So it was a bit awkward for her.

 **"Cait, you already know detective West, which is my foster father and that is his daughter Iris. They came to visit me while I was in a coma and continued to visit me and you after I woke up and while I was trying to get you to wake up as well"** Barry made the shortest introduction he could while heading toward Cisco to grab Caitlin's food.

There were thoughts going through Iris's head that even she didn't know where they appeared. Instantly, the fact that Barry had not told anyone that he woke up early, but chose to take care of the woman that was now standing in front of her, seemed off. Something was itching in the back of her mind, like she would have wanted Barry out there, with her, rather than being cooped up in here. Joe had told her when the two met, and now, not before, it seemed outrageous to her that the CSI would do that for someone he had barely met. The stranger thing however, which made her even more confused is why was she thinking about this now. Barry taking care of Caitlin had been going on for 6 months and yet, all these thoughts flooded her now when she saw the woman that had awaken being hugged by her father.

 **"Glad to meet you Iris and thank you for visiting. Even though you did not know who I was. Detective West, nice to see you again"** she replied to them

 **"Well Barry thought you were important enough. He did not reveal the fact that he was awake to anyone and continue working on a way to try to wake you up. As you might have guessed from the greetings and our own worry, someone important to Barry, is important to us"** Joe explained and Iris nodded in approval. Caitlin felt a tear come to her eye. Two random people, tied to her by nothing than random chance through a lightning bolt and a cheeky CSI, were treating her like family and then the realization hit her.

 **"Wait, you didn't say to anyone you were awake?"** she beamed at Barry who gave her a nod. Then she remembered that he had already mentioned that during their talks. **"Why did you do that, and ... how did you keep yourself fed, without work, without anything else, how did you get clothes?"**

 **"I'm guessing that's another thing you don't remember me telling you about. Well, since we were technically down one biochemist Dr. Wells agreed to hire me temporarily while you were asleep. Of course, off the books since I was still in a coma to the outside world. Therefore, that's the money issue resolved. As for clothes, let's just say I'm ok with wearing STAR merchandise. The food was happily provided by Cisco and my family here"** He smiled as he went over to a table and started to unpack the food.

 **"You're a CSI, you don't have the qualifications of a…"** before finishing the sentence she looked at the whiteboard where the different formulas Barry concocted were written as well as eyeing some of the reports he had been reading. Then she remembered him telling her that he had her knowledge back during their first … _"dream walk"._ **"scan the area for tire tracks threads or any kind of imprints, then scrub it for any sort of residue , material or any sort of body fluids, with or without luminol and a black light and then remove any sort of fingerprints and macro evidence like gun casings or any sort of shell residue that might appear"** she blurted.

 **"That is how I know you have my CSI knowledge, what were you trying to say, Cait? That I don't have the qualifications necessary? Somehow in there you know that I'm as qualified as you are to have been taken care of you"** Barry smirked taking a seat motioning for her to come join him as well as the others.

 **"Mr. Allen. What's she talking about?"** Wells asked before pulling around the table. He did not take a space because he had already eaten earlier, but was very much interested about where this was going.

 **"Remember when I told you that I can be your missing bioengineer? Well my CSI training never taught me anything remotely as complicated as what I'm doing now. The knowledge I have is something that Caitlin would be good at"** Barry answered bluntly

 **"Oh, the knowledge sharing theory"** Wells concluded **"Yes, to be fair I was pretty skeptical about that at the start, but you proved yourself to be a skilled bioengineer, including having some of the other skills that Dr. Snow demonstrated while being employed here. I rarely take words at face value, but your actions showed that you indeed have that knowledge and also know how to put it to good use"**

 **"Barry? Mind sharing with the rest of the class? You know for those of us who aren't scientists?"** Iris asked with wide eyes. Caitlin was already digging in and he was hungry

 **"I'll let Cisco explain, Joe already knows what's going on, unless he put it out of his mind"** he noticed the engineer had finished one burger and was taking a break.

 **"Well, this is how Barry explained it to me. Somehow, the lightning strike has copied knowledge that they had between them. The first time he explained it to me it was pretty confusing, but long story short. Barry now is a biochemist, geneticist, hematologist, MD and whatever else Caitlin is and now she is a CSI, with all the procedural knowledge and methodical thinking he has"** Joe and Iris looked at one another not being actually that surprised. They have found Barry running tests that were nowhere near his area of expertise and when they asked for explanations, they were provided swiftly as if they were second nature. It was clear he knew what he was doing.

 **"Wow, I think you two need to share the nickname of "Food Vacuum""** Cisco started to laugh as he looked at both Barry and Caitlin stuffing their faces. Caitlin herself barely registered the first two burgers with cheese and guacamole that she had eaten, but when hearing the nickname she almost choked laughing, Barry giving Cisco a death glare.

 **"I think we need to see how fast you can actually run"** Wells shared his opinion with the group and Cisco agreed with him after watching them eat.

 **"We should at least wait until we finish the food we have here"** Cisco spoke, not noticing Iris and Joe already finished their meals, as well as Caitlin and Barry who had eaten 6 Big Belly burgers with everything.

 **"God, I'm going to get so fat."** Caitlin muttered

 **"That's what I've been eating for the last two months and I've been here all the time. You aren't going to get fat or did you forget that in a permanent state of cellular regeneration fat gets used almost instantly. No worries, Dr. Snow, you are going to keep your beautiful figure no matter how much food you stuff in your mouth"** Barry said with a chuckle, surprised that Caitlin actually cared about her looks. She however was completely stunned about the blunt compliment he made her. Nobody had done that in quite a long time and she was taken aback by it, not really managing to control her blushing.

 **"Good luck with your tests. I do need to ask, do you want to come back to work? Because if you think about coming back, I have to report to the captain that you are awake"** Joe inquired

 **"Yes I think I'm ready to wake up now. You can go ahead and let everyone know that I'm still alive"** Barry replied with a smile.

 **"There might be a surprise for you when you come back as well. I heat Pinto and Berger want to arrange something like a coming back party, but they got their idea canned considering the fact that you were away for 9 months"** Joe got up from the table followed by Iris **"I need to go back to the precinct. Maybe you should make an appearance there later as well. Since now you`re officially awake. Nice to actually be able to talk to you, Caitlin"**

 **"All right, Joe" B** arry replied swiftly

 **"Nice meeting you, Caitlin"** Iris added as well **"I need to go back to work too. Lunchtime is over "**

 **"It was nice meeting you, Iris. Good to have seen you again, Detective West and thank you for visiting"** she replied looking up to the two persons about to leave. After the two had left, Barry took Cisco to the center console.

 **"I wrote a program with embedded safety limits for Caitlin and my vitals. It will get updated as when we find out more. They are tied into the bracers that were both wearing. I realize you aren't much of a doctor so I thought that should help"** Barry added pulling on the screen the new app he had created a few days earlier. There were two stack of vitals on the screen, one his and the other one that was not registering anything.

 **"Oh. I took the bracer off when I changed"** Caitlin spoke from behind the two **"I'll have it on for the tests though"**

 **"I suggest you have it on at all times unless we go out of the lab"** Barry added and he saw her nod slightly. She knew how valuable the data they could get was.

 **"Mr. Allen, you and Dr. Snow should take the rest of the afternoon off. We can do tests tomorrow as well and you both need a break. She just woke up and you have been cooped up here for the last almost 6 months** " prompting the two to which this was addressed to make a surprised face.

 **"You of all people understand the importance of the data we are going to get, so why don't we start right away?"** Caitlin inquired not knowing what Wells' actual motives were.

 **"That's simple"** Cisco added **"If Barry is correct then none of the clothes you have on would work at those extreme speeds. I need to build some stuff first, so I need at least some time to get the basic gear ready. We wouldn't want you to speed and your clothes to start disintegrating, now do we?"**

 **"All right, then I guess we have the afternoon free"** Barry quipped

 **"Well then I might as well go home and have a bath"** Caitlin interjected

 **"I'll walk you home, Cait. After that, I will probably go home and sleep myself. I don't think I have slept in a bed for the last 6 months** " Barry was sitting up near the door.

 **"You don't have to do that. It doesn't take long to get home driving 15 minutes at the most"** she retorted with a smile while they were walking out the front door and then realized the parking lot was empty.

 **"What do you want to drive? Your car has been at the police station gathering dust all these months."** he explained

 **"Oh, you`re right. I forgot I went to see you before the lightning happened. Which reminds me, did you ever manage to find anything more on your culprit?"** she asked as they slowly walked toward her home.

 **"No, the evidence I had I already gave Joe back then and that case has already turned cold. The police have nothing on it anymore"** Barry replied

 **"What did you mean when you said you haven't slept in a bed for the last 6 months?"** she asked

 **"As you know, the dream discussions we had required physical contact. It's not like I could climb into bed with you. Putting another bed next to yours wouldn't really work, because I didn't want to find out what a broken connection could entail. So, I slept on the chair, each and every night for the last 6 months, with your hand in mine and my head on a pillow that was on the railing. You would think that I would have had serious issues by now, but apparently the fast regeneration takes care of obvious aches that might come from sleeping in such a weird position"** Barry responded quite seriously. She then realized what he was saying. For him to come into their dream world, to keep her company, he had to sleep in an uncomfortable chair every night for 6 months. She looked at him and smiled with admiration. She began to see more into how much conviction he had into helping her. While they were walking, Caitlin realized something and suddenly became crimson red in the face.

 **"Barry, mind if I ask you something?"** she managed to utter

 **"No, what is it?"** his reply came attached to a smile

 **"Well, when you were taking care of the me out here ... in a coma … didn't you have to do … you know ... basic medical cleanup and hygiene?"** she manage to blurt it out in one go wincing

 **"Let me guess, you`re trying to covertly ask me if I have seen you naked. Is that is?"** he smiled at her making her face go further and further into a deep shade of red **"You are! You're blushing"**

 **"Yes, I … guess I am. I mean, I wouldn't be mad, it's something a doctor does and what a doctor does is to take care of the patient"** Barry looked surprised at how the woman with a cold scientific demeanor that was always on point was turning into a rambling mess in front of him at the idea that he might have seen her naked.

 **"Yes, I have, multiple times. I said I would take care of you and that included everything"** he lied through his teeth only to look at her be even more fidgety. Her face was on the brink of turning bright red when he couldn't keep it in and started to laugh.

 **"Why are you laughing?"** she asked almost sounding pissed at him **" _I know I'm no supermodel, but do I look that bad? Wait, that can't be, he complimented the way I look multiple times until now. I must be overthinking stuff"_** she thought to herself at the same time.

 **"I'm sorry, but you are such an easy mark to play tricks on, Cait. Whom do you take me for? Sure I wouldn't have had an issue at disrobing you and giving you a wash down, if you were I don't know, my girlfriend or as you so eloquently put it, my actual patient. Let's be clear here. You are neither of those; I have literally known you a grand total of one day. Not counting the dreams and that time that you helped me off the sidewalk. I'm not even a real doctor. So, to answer truthfully without trying to tease you. No, I did not. I had someone come and take care of that, as a personal favor to me. I have been raised to be a gentleman after all"** he explained, seeing the blush on her face pale, giving her one of his patented dopey grins. She could see he was telling the truth.

 **"So, who actually did that? Seems I need to thank them"** she replied

 **"Well, you can thank her right now if you want. We can pass by Jitters on the way to your home"** Barry smiled toward her

 **"Oh, so it was Iris?"** the doctor asked quizzically

 **"Yep. And a few times I had Felicity help when she came in town"** the speedster replied

 **"Who is Felicity?"** she asked.

 **"She is a friend of mine from Starling City. I met her way back when I worked a case there involving some very nasty guys. She came to visit while I was in a coma and then continued to visit both of us while I was awake. She understood why I asked her and helped without asking for anything in return"** Barry replied

 **"Jitters isn't exactly on my way home. When I said I lived close I wasn't kidding"** She motioned toward a building at the end of the street they were walking on **"My apartment is there"** She bit her tongue about asking anything else, even though she wanted to know more about this Felicity, someone who Barry was apparently very fond of.

 **"You can go rest, we can go to Jitters or we can just simply walk around some more. You have been out of the world for 9 months so that could help you gain back some muscle tone. I'm down for whatever. Unless you want to go there alone"** His face turned serious for a moment **"But before you decide that, tell me, what else do you remember from the discussions we had when you were out?"**

 **"I remember you telling me about the particle accelerator exploding. Dr. Wells getting paralyzed from it and … "** she suddenly remembered **"Ronnie dying"** Her expression went blank, like every ounce of life was sucked from her. She wanted to scream, to cry and to lash out at Dr. Wells, until he took her hand, temporarily numbing her squall of emotions.

 **"I know how that must feel. It's not something that passes easily"** he replied looking down.

 **"How would you know?"** she lashed at him taking her hand back from his.

 **"As much as we have talked, you must have realized I did not tell you things about me. We were always busy trying to get you out of that coma and we didn't much focus on anything else" he sighed, but continued "My mother was killed in front of me when I was 11, and the man who did it … escaped. To make matters even worse, the police arrested my father for her murder. He is still in Iron heights, serving the sentence. I was lucky that Joe took me in so I wouldn't bounce around the foster care system. To be honest I don't think I would have turned out as well as I did if it wasn't for him"** Caitlin looked at him as they walked. His bright green eyes had changed; they were now the look of someone who has seen suffering and adversity in his life. It was also the look of a fighter, someone who had taken his situation and turned it into something better. He had known pain, the kind of pain she was feeling now and it was very clear he was talking from experience.

 **"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to snap at you like that"** was the only thing that came to her lips as she took his hand back into hers **"Is that why you became a CSI?"**

 **"Partly, yes"** He nodded **"I want to catch my mother's killer and free my dad from the sentence that was wrongly bestowed on him. At least that's what it was at the start. As time passed I realized that I can do much more with my work and even though I have never stopped looking for the murderer, what I do now helps the police put away felons and murderers and keeping the streets clean and make this city a little bit safer"** As he said that his smile returned **"Don't be sorry. It was a long time ago. But as I have stated, I do know how losing family feels, all too well"**

 **"Ronnie is just my most recent pain I guess. My last boyfriend crashed his car and he was brought to the hospital I was working as a biomedical engineer… and he died in my arms. Someone thought it would be a good idea to call me before he died. In a way, I still doubt that it was the best thing to do back then"** she continued. As they arrived in front of Caitlin's apartment, they stopped.

 **"So what will it be, Cait? Coming to Jitters or going home to take a bath and chill?"** Barry inquired

 **"I am feeling pretty tired. Which is awkward coming from someone that spent 9 months in a coma. Which means bath and chill it is."** she answered actually yawning.

 **"Ok. See you tomorrow at the labs then?"** he gave her a bright smile.

 **"Yes. See you tomorrow, Barry and thank you"** her answer was immediate

 **"For what?"** he asked looking at her with a surprised face.

 **"For staying with me while I was in my coma and for taking care of me. Even for keeping me company in my head while I was asleep. Which is something that I still do not know how you did. That place gets lonely without the notion of time. You even slept in a chair so you could do that, something that would have probably caused someone else severe pains and bad dreams"** she was really grateful to him for keeping his promise.

 **"Nothing you wouldn't do for me, right?"** he smiled back at her.

 **"I don't know. I really don't know if I had done the same for you."** she answered truthfully

 **"Well, I do. You are welcome, Caitlin Snow. Now go have that bath and get some rest"** He waved goodbye as he was going at a faster pace toward the center of the city leaving a stunned Caitlin looking at him.

She walked up to her apartment and started running a bath for herself and then she looked in the mirror and noticed the strands of white hair that she had, which annoyed her to no end. It was strange to her that she didn't notice them by now considering she was awake for a while. Not really thinking about it, she grabbed her phone and dialed Barry.

 **"WHAT did you do to my hair?"** she yelled into the phone

 **"What do you mean?"** Barry's voice was unsure of what she was referring to

 **"Why do I have strands of silver hair? Did you think they would look good on me or what? Did you decide to do that while I was in the coma?"** she was pissed at him.

 **"Cait, we already discussed about that. However, I'm guessing that didn't come back to you yet. No, I did not color your hair. Why would I do that? Do you really think I'm that much of a creep? Really?"** Barry defended himself and his tone was very annoyed

 **"When did we discuss it?"** she half lashed out at him

 **"A few weeks ago , in one of our … ahem … chats"** She vaguely remembered something, then thinking a bit harder she recollected what they had talked about and replied

 **"These are changes reflected in my physiology by the genetic changes triggered by the particle accelerator, aren't they?"**

 **"Yes, indeed they are. If by some random thought, you don't trust me. I took the liberty of putting the research I did onto your phone. It's encrypted and you already know the password. Since you might not have fallen asleep immediately, I thought to give you something to catch up on. Out here"** he replied and she could almost picture his coy grin. She was again pleasantly surprised at how he thought ahead, giving her something to occupy her time with, while she rested. Something she did not even consider before saying she wanted to go home. She was the type of person who got bored easily and Netflix would only account for so much.

 **"Thank you for giving me something to read. I'm sorry I snapped at you. I should have known someone who asks his sister to bathe me wouldn't play stupid pranks"** she tried to excuse herself.

 **"No worries, I know sometimes I act like a 12 yo, but that doesn't make me one. Take care, Cait and I'll see you tomorrow"** the reply came

 **"Goodbye, Barry. Get some rest yourself. Maybe sleep in a bed this time"**

She got into the tub and took her phone to look over the encrypted data. He said she knew the password and she got it right the first time. The password was the only thing that she could think about **"Cait"**. The only unique thing would have come out of her discussions with Barry. So she put in 2248 and the documents started to open on the screen. She spent the better part of an hour just taking in the pleasant smell and lounging in the tub while she read his findings. After finishing with the bath and eating a pizza that she had ordered while she was in the tub, she went to bed. While she was drifting off to sleep, she could feel that something was missing. Something that she couldn't quite figure out.

Few hours later Barry made it home. He just needed to walk and clear his head and was greeted by Joe who was watching TV. He had wondered around town with disconnected thoughts in his mind about everything that had happened up to this point. He did so alone with his thoughts, which he had tried to put in order.

 **"Nice to see you out of the lab, Bar. You hungry?"** he smiled motioning at the two pizzas that were on the table

 **"How did you know?"** he smiled sitting near his adopted father and started to munch

 **"Well, because after the lightning I noticed how much you eat. "Food Vacuum""** he stated to laugh

 **"I'm going to kill Cisco"**

 **"How's Caitlin?"** Joe asked

 **"I took her home. She should be fine. She said something about taking a bath and maybe go through my research, before she gets some rest. As surprising as it might be for a person that was 9 months in a coma, she was tired"** Barry replied

 **"Barry, you never told me what determined you to stay and try to get her out of that coma. I know you felt guilty for calling her there, but that can't be the only reason"** the detective asked him quite interested in his reasons

 **"Remember that long time ago when I told you my mother had been killed by a red and yellow blur zipping around in my house?"**

 **"Yes, I remember what you told me about that night"** Joe was concerned. He knew the amount of pain that incident had inflicted on Barry.

 **"Before the strike I saw a similar orange flash pushing Caitlin toward me. At the time when the lightning hit, she had bumped into me and her hands were on mine trying to keep herself from falling. My hands however were on the chain that closed the skylight. I was trying to not let the rain come inside. That is the reason she was in a coma. Someone pushed her to me causing us both to be hit by the lightning. Without that interference, even if she was around, the lightning would have only hit me"** Barry said with a strange look.

 **"What are you saying? The man that has killed your mother might have an involvement in this as well?"** Joe inquired with a shaky voice. He had never believed Barry and he always thought of Henry as the killer. Coming back to this story after such a long while wasn't coincidence at all

 **"I do not know. This was an orange flash, but that lightning I saw was red an orange as well so I'm not sure, but I needed to know if he would try something again with Caitlin, since she was apparently the primary target"** The answer came

 **"Do you think she is still in danger?"** he asked the obvious question that were on both their minds

 **"No, in 9 months nothing happened. I think whoever was that night, wanted Caitlin to be hit by lightning with me. I am at a loss for the actual reason, or for what sort of endgame that would have been done"** he replied finishing another slice of pizza.

 **"I managed to talk to Captain Singh, if you want to come back to the precinct sometime this week, he has your job back for you"** the detective mentioned.

 **"I'll be there and I hope you already thanked him for me for keeping the job opening."** The CSI told his adoptive father.

 **"Well, while you were gone we have had someone stand in for you. You should meet him when you drop by. As far as I understood it, he was on loan from Coast City PD"** Joe replied

 **"All right. I'm off to sleep. I haven't slept in a bed for quite a while"** Barry smiled

 **"Good night, Bar"**

Barry went off to take a shower and went to bed. **" _Tomorrow should be interesting indeed"_** he thought to himself before falling asleep for the first time without being near Caitlin or holding her hand in the last 6 months.


	5. Speed

The next morning the precinct was in full swing. Eddie Thawne and Joe were already ready to go out for the call that came quite early in their day. It was a robbery at Central City Bank. They saddled up and went straight to the location, but when they got there, they found nothing. The Robber had gotten away. They sealed the area and Joe thought it appropriate to call Barry. He got his phone and dialed up the speedster. After a few minutes, a sleepy voice answered.

 **"Yes? What is it Joe?"**

 **"Barry, I know you have been "officially" awake for a day, but we could use your help. The captain has really been understanding with you resuming your duties"** The detective told him

 **"I can try, I'm a bit slow at the moment since I barely woke up"** the voice replied.

 **"You might want to do that ASAP. There might be trace evidence from the person that was responsible for that burglary at STAR labs way back when. One of the witnesses told us he saw a GT500 leave the area"** Joe added. After no more than a few minutes a fully waken up voice came through the line.

 **"I got you. That case has been on my mind for a while, I would rest easier if we actually catch the person that did it. Where are you?"** the answer came with the same sleepy voice.

 **"Central City Bank. How fast can you … get here?"** Joe asked swiftly

 **"15 minutes max" Barry replied, closing the call, getting his coat and CSI kit and rushing out the door. In less than 10 minutes, he had arrived at the crime scene.**

 **"Hey, Joe. What can I do?"**

 **"How about you comb the crime scene for clues. Eddie and I are going to interview the other witnesses that we didn't manage to get to. We only obtained statements from a few persons and we got lucky about that one guy telling us about the car"** he said as he went to help his partner.

Barry moved toward the crime scene. The first thing he saw was a familiar tire print in the dust in the front of the bank. 12 inch super wide tires with an asymmetrical thread. **" _It's the same make and model of car that was at the STAR robbery. Joe was right; at least the same model of car was stationed here. I wonder if it's the same person or if this is just a simple coincidence"_**

As the CSI scoured the crime scene for other clues, the two detectives started interviewing the witnesses. Only one of them proved useful enough to provide sufficient relevant information, but his testimony was a bit out there. He was talking about a man who can make it rain inside the bank. As per his words, the man managed to produce a storm indoors that looked like a hurricane with the added effect of rain and sleet. He managed to scare all of the people that were in the bank, to the point the tellers started to give him anything he requested.

Joe and Eddie looked at one another pretty baffled. The story that this witness was telling was something that could only have come from a comic book. Someone who could produce wind and lightning inside was new to them. However, from a story that seemed unlikely, something good came out of it. The witness had taken a good look at the man and agreed to go downtown and go through mugshots to identify the criminal.

Barry went inside and took the only piece of relevant evidence that he could find, a partial thumbprint that he found by accident when he looked through the shell casings that were discarded. He took the casing entirely and was going to process the thumbprint back at his lab.

 **"Hey, Joe. So, the tracks that I found match the tracks that were at the old STAR labs heist a few months ago. Your witness was telling the truth. This time however I found a fingerprint as well. I'm going to go back to the lab and get you a name if possible. Did the witnesses provide any useful information?"** Barry told him

 **"Yea. One of them thinks he can point out the thief from a mugshot. He's already working with someone to look through the catalog we have"** Joe looked at him sheepishly

 **"Good, then I'm going to go back to the lab and run these before Singh has my head"** before Joe managed to say anything else, he was already gone. He started to run toward the precinct and saw the world slow down around him. Realizing that his powers might have activated, he stopped into an alley near the CCPD, something he would thank himself for later. In his lab he found an unknown person that was finishing a list of reports.

 **"Hello? I didn't know someone was already here. I'm Barry, Allen"** He introduced himself to the unknown person.

 **"Hello. I am Lara Roberts. I have been responsible with metahuman cases since your unfortunate accident"** The person replied.

 **"Nice to meet you, Lara. So, you`re the person they hired to replace me?"** Barry asked a bit unnerved

 **"Actually, no. I was not hired, I came from Hub City with a problem of my own and decided to stay until you woke up to help the CCPD. I had no idea it would take 9 months however"** he smiled, but Barry was a bit apprehensive about his motives.

 **"Does that means we're partners from now on?"** the question came a bit unexpected

 **"No, not really. You see when I heard that you were coming back to work; I put in a leave request from Hub City. There is some … business I need to attend to in Europe, which means I need to take some time off from the police"** Lara offered without a second thought.

 **"In Europe? Wow. Can you tell me what is it that you are going to do there?"**

 **"In part, leading an expedition to find something and the other part is strictly personal"** the woman answered with a cold tone. **" _Of course she wouldn't answer, I barely know her. We aren't friends"_** Barry thought to himself as he started work on the proof that he had gathered from the crime scene. The print that he had just ran came up with a match. Clyde Mardon status, deceased. He took out his phone and dialed Joe.

 **"Joe, the print from the crime scene. It belongs to someone called Clyde Mardon. The problem is … the system says he's deceased"** he told his foster father.

 **"What? Are you sure, Barry?"** the voice on the other side of the line sounded surprised

 **"Yes, I ran the print twice. I'm sending a picture of the guy to your phone. The rest of the evidence is running and I need to get to STAR. So I'll talk to you a bit later"** He turned toward Julian.

 **"Good luck on your expedition. Thank you for the help and for subbing in while I was out of action, Lara"** the woman nodded and Barry turned to leave the lab to go back to STAR. Suddenly he felt afraid. He had no idea why he would be feeling like that, it was his lab, he was in his element and Julian provided no threat and no challenge to his CSI position knowing he would leave. A minute after, he received a message. It was from Caitlin.

 **"I need some help. Can you come over to my place?"**

 **"On my way. Be there as fast as I can"** he replied. Barry was a bit surprised, but he got out of the precinct and started to move as fast as he could. When he started to run, the world yet again slowed around him, it seemed like everything was almost standing still. He was next to the door that led to her apartment in less than a few seconds. The door was unlocked; this seemed weird to him because nobody would do that. Not in Central City after the whole metahuman debacle. He entered and calmed down when he saw Caitlin on the sofa facing the door. It was clear she opened the door expecting him. He turned and closed the door behind him approaching her.

 **"What is it, Cait. Your message sounded urgent?"** then he observed her posture and the fact that her left arm was holding her right shoulder. As she breathed, she was wincing **"You dislocated your shoulder, didn't you?"**

 **"Yeah. How did you know? Also, how did you get here so fast? I received your reply like a few seconds ago. Were you coming to see me?"** she replied with a bit of surprise on her face.

 **"I … ran. It took me a few seconds while the world was standing still to get here. When I responded to your message, I was coming out of the precinct. I know because you're holding your shoulder. Also when you breathe you wince; which I assume is from the pain. I'm not a stranger to those incidents myself. What happened?"** he inquired

 **"Well, I kind of ran into my bathroom door frame by accident"** Caitlin gave him a weak smile

 **"You mean, sped into the door frame … right? There's no way running at normal speed would produce that kind of damage** " He pointed at her bruised shoulder. He grabbed her arm **"You know what comes next. Hold on"** She took a deep breath and nodded, while Barry put her shoulder back in place.

 **"OWWW"** she winced when the pain hit her. Even though observing his technique she knew that he had tried to put it back as gently as possible

 **"Sorry, sorry"** Barry excused himself

 **"Don't worry about it. There is no way to put back a popped shoulder without some force, but since this is the first time in my life when I actually had a dislocated shoulder, the pain actually surprised me"** She tried to assure him

 **"So want to really tell me how this happened?"** Barry sat down next to her

 **"When I woke up I went about to do my usual morning routine. Then I slipped on that carpet over there. As I was falling, the world seemed to slow down and when I gained my balance, I … kind of ran into the door frame. I was lucky I didn't hit my head or something"** Barry smiled. He remembered his first encounter with the enhanced speed while thinking that a sly grin appeared on his face.

 **"What are you smiling about, Barry Allen. This really hurts"** Caitlin tried to admonish him for laughing at her pain

 **"I wasn't laughing at you. I remembered the first time that happened to me. I was going to Cisco's lab to ask him about his progress with the bracers, then the next thing I knew I was in the storage room with some boxes fallen over me and with a lot of bruises. I guess I had a bit of luck since I didn't encounter a door, huh?"** he gave her one of those patented smiles. She started to laugh softly at his misfortune. That smile somehow made her feel safe. Barry on the other hand did not feel afraid anymore. It was as if the sensation was taken from his mind the moment he arrived at her house.

 **"We definitely need to go back to STAR and run more tests. Beginning with our speed. It sincerely looked to me like the world was standing still from my viewpoint"** she muttered. Looking down, she remembered what she was wearing, a pair of SpongeBob shorts with a dark blue tank top. The amount of skin they revealed was much more than she was comfortable showing to him, or anyone else for that matter. As she began to blush, she got up from the sofa.

 **"I need to get ready to go back to the lab. You can go ahead and leave if you want. I'll meet you there"** she tried to get him out of the apartment faster, but failed.

 **"I'll wait and go with you. At least to make sure you don't speed off into the bay, while we might actually be able to run on water with our speed, I would not like you to try that alone. We can both try to impersonate Jesus, but later"** he smiled back at her, watching her slowly move. She had a beautiful body and Barry's gaze lingered on her a few more moments before she disappeared around the corner into the bathroom.

The two managed to get to STAR safely, Caitlin making sure that she didn't try to run and Barry holding her hand. When they got there, Cisco and Wells, with their help, loaded one of the STAR Labs vans and drove to Ferris Airfield. One of the abandoned places that was part of Central City. That airfield was used for military purposes by the Air Force base that used to be nearby until it got shot down for some undisclosed reason.

They were all outside on the long track of the airfield. Cisco thought it would be a good idea to give them both a long straight stretch of land to run on to gauge their speed. Both Caitlin and Barry were wearing runner suits, the ones that were tight spandex to give them minimal resistance and freedom of movement.

 **"I feel like a stripper wearing this"** Caitlin muttered toward Cisco

 **"It does feel a little snug"** Barry commented as well. Cisco getting a bit annoyed with both of them.

 **"We can work on something later, but for now just run. Here, put these on"** He gave them the bracers and headgear **"The helmets have noise cancellers meant for battlefield conditions. They should suppress any type of loud sound, or in your case, potential sonic booms. Which would be awesome"** The engineer said excited **"Dr. Wells will be monitoring your vitals and speed, along with your energy output"**

 **"Not you, Cisco?"** Barry asked

 **"I make the toys man, you should know that by now, but if I'm needed of course I'll help"** he answered.

 **"Mr. Allen. Dr. Snow. As much as I would like to see the complete range of your abilities… I do caution restraint, we do not yet understand what you two can do"** Harrison Wells spoke taking his place in front of the consoles.

The two of them nodded and took positions. In the moment before they ran you could see the lightning in their eyes as the two took off with a wind backlash so powerful that it knocked Cisco on his ass and pushed Wells' chair several meters back. They could both see two streaks of red moving along the airfield at high velocity, but the lightning that each gave off was different. Barry's was orange while Caitlin's was a silvery blue.

 **"Wow, they're clocking around 350 miles per hour and the velocity is still going up"** Cisco yelled like he was a small child in a candy store

As the two were running they looked at each other smiling. They both felt the power, the wind rushing along their faces, the electricity that was coursing through them. They both checked their vitals in their slowed state and saw that everything was as normal as it could get. Barry's thoughts went back to the night of his mother's murder. The streaks of red and orange dancing in his living room, running around his mom. The fact that he wasn't paying attention made him crash into the end of the tarmac water barrels that were there for protection. Caitlin ran back to him in an instant.

 **"What happened, where does it hurt?"** she asked him and he could feel worry coming from her. However, not her voice, it was coming from her … directly.

 **"I think I just broke my arm, that's what I get for not looking where I run"** He winced in pain at his wrist, which was completely deformed.

 **"Enough running for today. Let's go back to STAR we need to get some x rays of that arm"** Caitlin said, visibly ticked off that he wasn't careful while running.

 **"We have portable machines here. You can take an X ray and if needed splint my hand, but you need to do one more thing while you are here"** Barry told her

 **"What would that be?"** She replied with a quizzical look

 **"I want to see you decapitate something, preferably not me"** he grinned remembering the first incident where she sneezed and almost took his head off in the lab as they both ran back toward the trailer, at slower speed this time. Caitlin ran him back to the van and took an X-ray of his arm.

 **"You have a distal radius fracture"** she said looking at the picture **"I need you to keep the hand supported and be careful you do not hit the splint on anything"** continuing her thoughts as she put his hand in a 3d printed cast made by one of Cisco's inventions.

 **"Yes, mam. I'll be here monitoring your vitals while you play with your other powers"** he chuckled at the irony of it all. Dr. Snow getting ice powers. That was a real laugh. Caitlin smiled perceiving the irony herself. **"Ok, Cait, let's see what you can do "**

Cisco put a mannequin in the middle of the strip. Without thinking too much Caitlin concentrated and two ice shards went toward the mannequins, embedding themselves in its outer layer.

 **"Nice"** Cisco shouted **"Can you freeze it?"**

 **"I don't know, but I can try"** Caitlin concentrated and what could only be described as a white frost beam went from her hands to the mannequin turning it in a few seconds in a block of ice.

 **"Wicked. You totally iced it"** both Cisco and Barry commented. Harrison Wells however was not pleased with Caitlin's newfound power. Something on his face showed worry as she was exercising with her powers and even combining attacks. Running fast around the mannequin hitting it with directed freeze blasts or ice spears.

A few hours later, she was exhausted. Barry noticed that more of her hair was turning silver. He felt his hand return to normal. Therefore, he took another x ray with the machine and was surprised by what he found. The fracture in his hand was completely healed.

 **"Hey! Cait! Mind coming over here and confirming something for me?"** he asked. She flashed near him and he showed her the X ray as he took the brace off.

 **"Wait, that's not possible. It healed in less than 3 hours?"** her face fell

 **"I know, how can that be?"** Barry was a bit scared, but the scientist in him was also thrilled at the possibility of the new discoveries.

 **"We don't know … yet. But you and me, we are going to find out"** She told him with a stern voice. As they packed the van back with the equipment and everything that they brought out Barry felt his stomach grumbling.

 **"Hey, Barry, I'm going to Jitters to get a bite to eat, want to come?"** Caitlin smiled and pointed at his stomach

 **"How did you know?"** he asked nonchalantly giving her a smirk

 **"I can hear your stomach grumbling and frankly, mine is doing the same. Only quieter"** She smiled

 **"Cisco , can you two manage with the equipment?"** Cisco nodded **"All right then. Let's go eat"**

The two decided to speed into the city limits but as the closed on Jitters Barry saw something and stopped. A black Gt500 was speeding along followed by a few police cruisers, and Mardon was inside. He saw the picture of him when he got the fingerprint analysis. Before any of them could do anything, one of the police cruisers skidded and headed right toward them. Barry grabbed her and pulled her out of the way, while speeding after him.

When he got close he broke into the car and pulled the steering wheel causing it to capsize and run another few meters before screeching to a halt. Barry got out of the car as Mardon started to form a twister right above them. The vehicle exploded, but this time it was her turn to pull him to the sidelines with a burst of speed.

 **"What were you doing?"** she asked

 **"That is the guy that was responsible for the bank theft this morning. His car has the same tire treads I've found way back when at STAR back in the day of the robbery. He's a metahuman too?"** Barry was exasperated **"We need to talk to Dr. Wells and then maybe go to eat after?"** and before he finished his sentence Caitlin nodded and they both ran to STAR labs. Wells and Cisco were in the Cortex analyzing the data they have pulled off during the tests they did earlier when Barry busted in the door.

 **"Why did you not tell me that there were other people that had powers? You said the particle accelerator explosion did not affect anyone else except Caitlin and me"** his voice was coarse and it conveyed his frustration quite well

 **"Mr. Allen. The night when the explosion occurred an inordinate amount of dark matter and x particles were dispersed into the atmosphere. We have no idea what, or whom it might have affected. When we talked, I told you that you were the first I have seen. I have no way of knowing if more are out there or not"** Harrison Wells bluntly stated as a map of the dark matter dispersion appeared on one of the cortex monitors. **"We have been searching for other … metahumans like yourself and Dr. Snow, but for now, we haven't found any "**

 **"We saw one today. He could control the weather apparently"** Caitlin interjected into the conversation

 **"Not only that, but he is a bank robber too. A DEAD bank robber"** Barry finished.

 **"Wait, did he come back to life? This just keeps getting cooler** " Cisco added with a grin on his face.

 **"No, he didn't Cisco, we aren't talking about Frankenstein. Just someone who came make storms happen out of thin and. And no, THIS is not cool"** Both Barry and Caitlin responded to the engineer's excitement. **"A man died in the robbery today. I want to be able to help these people!"** Only he continued.

 **"We want to help these people"** Caitlin corrected him **"I'm here too you know "**

 **"Barry, you healed a fracture within 3 hours. Caitlin, your body can produce substances that can help cryonics and keep near dying patients viable. And WE CANNOT risk all that knowledge to help people because you two want to play THE HEROES"** Wells yelled at them. **"You aren't heroes, you`re just two people that were struck by lightning"** he ended his tirade toward the two.

Barry felt the anger rise inside him. Without any sort of words to anyone, he flashed out of the Cortex at the full speed he could muster. Caitlin was right on his tail. They went back to Jitters to eat since both their stomachs were grumbling heavily now. After they finished he sped out. Caitlin was right behind him, yet again, even if she didn't know where they were going, she trusted him.

 **"Barry, where are we going?"** she asked through the lightning after a while

 **"I… I need to see a friend. Get some advice. Maybe a sympathetic ear. You heard Wells. We aren't heroes, just two poor saps that were struck by lightning and now have superpowers"** he grumbled.

 **"Don't worry about Wells. You want to help people and I want to help people. Then we will help people. I'm here with you, even if we have to do this without the help of anyone else"** she smiled toward him and grabbed his hand as they were running and then grumbled **"Super speed on heels is a pain in the ass. Literally"**

 **"Here, I'll help. I'm sorry I dragged you into this 500 mile trip"** they stopped both realizing their coats were starting to catch fire near a sign that read _STARLING CITY 50 miles._ Caitlin's heels were already smoking heavily. Barry dialed a number

 **"Hey Oliver, Can you meet me at the usual place? I need to talk to you"**

 **"Yeah. When?"** The voice on the other side inquired

 **"In about 10 minutes. Give or take "**

 **"I'll be there"** the voice replied closing the connection. He picked her up and sped off.

 **"Pencil skirts and heels, not a really good combination for running fast. At least I got skirts that have zippers to open so they offer me more mobility. Imagine running in an actual pencil skirt"** she chuckled.

 **"Nope, to look really hot maybe, but to run, definitely not"** Barry laughed, then stopped. He had inadvertently called Caitlin hot, to her face. He looked down to see her blushing.

 **"Barry Allen, stop joking, nobody would think nerdy Caitlin Snow is hot"** she replied bluntly. Barry looked at her **" _She really has no idea how beautiful she is. That's ... Cute"_**

 **"As you wish, madam, but … I wasn't joking"** he chuckled and took off faster toward the meeting point.

She found herself smiling at his retort, even though, deep down, she couldn't believe it. She had never thought of herself that way. Even though she had other people tell her that, that was not her end goal. Her end goal was to change the world, or at least do something she should be remembered for, and in her perspective being _"hot"_ as Barry put it was not part of the agenda.

While they were running, her thought drifted back to Ronnie. The bitterness of losing her brother and losing her career was something that stalked her no matter what she did and where she went. There was a hole in her soul that she couldn't fill. First losing her father and now Ronnie, her perspective at a promising career went down the drain and the relationship with her mother being what it was, it made her bitter. There was no way that anyone would be ok after something like that. The strange thing was that she was always feeling better around Barry. It was as if dark stuff went into the background and blended into the walls of her mind every time she saw him smile. They reached the meeting point and they saw a hooded figure dressed in a suit only green in color and dawning a hood, a large bow and a quiver.

 **"Hello, Oliver"** Barry addressed the hooded man **"Thank you for meeting with me at this late hour"**

 **"Barry, I do hope your girlfriend is to be trusted. You just blurted out my secret identity"** the Arrow gnarled at the CSI.

 **"I'm not his girlfriend"** Caitlin replied.

 **"Oh? Is that right?"** Oliver smiled seeing her fidget as she was denying that claim **"So what can I help you with Barry? Something tells me you haven't run 500 miles with a beautiful lady just to say hi to a friend and since we've already established you didn't want to introduce me to your girlfriend either, I assume this has something to do with the lightning that struck you?"**

 **"Oliver, you know that I've spent my life searching for the impossible since my mom was killed. Now, Caitlin and I are the impossible"** Barry told him bluntly.

 **"But we don't know how to be like you. The people in our lives think that we just are people struck by lightning"** Caitlin continued

 **"Yes, we don't know how to be … vigilantes"** Barry nodded

 **"Then be better. You two, I don't think the lightning strike was accidental. I think you were chosen. Don't be like me, not vigilantes. Be heroes"** Oliver continued with his gravelly voice, as it usually was when he was not using the voice modulator. **"You can inspire people. Look over your city like Guardian angels. Saving people … in a flash"** The two smiled. Oliver as much as he was a vigilante was one of Barry's friends and his pep talk reminded both of them that they want to help people.

 **"Yes, we want to save people, hunt things, the family business"** Barry commented **"Oops, I've been watching too much Netflix"** Both him and Caitlin started to laugh as Oliver almost face palmed. Even so, his face held a subtle smile seeing her elbowing him as she laughed.

 **"Follow your own advice"** He went to the side of the roof **"Wear a mask"** he smiled and jumped over. They could see him going up on a wall with a grappler arrow. The both looked in awe and replied at the same time

 **"Cool"** as they started to run back to Central City through the streets of Starling. Up above the streets the Arrow was watching them. Both running with trails of lightning being gone in an instant.

 **"Cool"** he smiled disappearing into the night himself. In under an hour they were back in the Cortex. They went by the precinct where Caitlin helped Barry sift through the last 9 months of unexplained cases. Alternatively, cases that might have a supernatural tendency to them. People with powers seemed to start to pop up a lot after the Particle accelerator explosion. Wells had gone home as the three friends stood around a table in the cortex with a ton of case files from the CCPD.

 **"There has been a spike in the metahuman criminal activity the past 9 months we were in a coma. Now, I don't know what Wells wants, but I am not just going to stand by and watch innocent people get killed. I want to catch every one of them, but I can't do it alone. I am not blaming you for anything that has happened with the whole Particle Accelerator, but I do need your help"** Barry started to talk to the people that in a short period of time became his friends.

 **"I'm in"** Cisco replied almost instantly with a wide smile on his face.

 **"You know I am in, I thought I already made that painfully clear on the trip we just took"** Caitlin replied looking at Barry **"If I can help make a difference then I will"**

 **"If you two are going to go out there, then you need proper attire. Come with me"** The three went back to Cisco's lab. On two tables, there were two suits present.

 **"This is for you. The suits were initially made to be worn by firefighters in a blaze. They are made from a tri composite polymer. Both heat and abrasive resistant, the material is streamlined to offer as little air resistance as possible while also helping you control your speed and trajectory"** Barry and Caitlin looked at the suits in awe. One of them was red and the other was dark blue **"I have replicated the tech in the bracers and put them into the left arm of the suit. Therefore, you can both monitor each other's vitals on the go. The suits already have built in sensors, which I have been wired into the readouts already. The boots have been Cisco'd too. The souls are made from a high friction material that should give you better and higher traction as well as braking power and control over turns. Caitlin, yours are bit higher than Barry's. I thought you might like them like that for … reasons. The masks also contain earpieces so that we can communicate over long distances as well as a mini version of the battlefield noise dampener in case you do manage to break the sound barrier. They are tied into the STAR satellite so you should have no problem with reception anywhere on this side of the planet"**

 **"Why does Barry's costume has a complete head mask and mine only has a part of it"** Caitlin asked something from the top of her head **"Also thank you for the boots, they look really nice"**

 **"Because it's a crime to hide that beautiful hair under a headpiece?"** Barry gave her a winning smile and she started to blush.

 **"While Barry has a point, I would go with … no. It's for convenience. Caitlin. I doubt you want to put your hair up in a bun every time you want to wear your suit. The mask will mold to your face, so you will have no issue with it slipping and giving away your secret identity"** Cisco chimed in and Caitlin was surprised that he gave it so much thought **. "They are both tailored to your specific physique, so you won't have a problem getting into them and if you think it's too snug, well tough luck"**

 **"Just out of curiosity, how did you get my measurements?"** Caitlin looked creepily at the engineer who was fiddling with something on a bench

 **"Your file at STAR? It contains everything I need to know. They haven't been doing physicals yearly on us to not keep the data"** Cisco smiled.

 **"Oh"** she replied fidgeting with her tablet, not giving it a second thought **"So going on what you told me Mardon can control the weather. I have re tasked STAR Labs satellite to look for weather anomalies. We just got a ping. A low pressure system resembling a hurricane at a farm east of the city "**

 **"Let's go"** and in a second the two were dressed and out the door in a burst of lightning leaving a smiling Cisco behind. He was really happy with his work although looking at the empty circular spots in the chest pieces he couldn't keep out the feeling that there was something missing.

They arrived at the farm a few minutes later and saw a gigantic tornado and a piece of flying debris that was heading straight for Joe. Caitlin threw a few ice spears that embedded themselves in the debris with such force that it altered its path, but not enough. Barry ran straight at the debris and caught it, the force that it had sending him to the ground. The detectives have figured out where he was hiding and they were on the scene.

 **"Barry, what's going on over there?"** Cisco asked through the comms **"The satellite is picking up data that resembles to an F5 tornado"**

 **"Mardon is trying to produce a twister that will wipe out anyone that's here and in the city if it gets there. We knew he was a criminal, but apparently he might be completely off his rocker too"** Caitlin responded as Barry was getting up from the ground after catching the debris that was heading for Joe. The detective looked at the two persons in strange suits intently as they talked in the distance.

 **"What if we unravel it?"** Barry asked.

 **"How the heck are you going to do that"** Cisco asked with a worried tone

 **"Run around it in the opposite direction, cut off its legs"** the speedster tried to explain his thoughts as fast as possible. They were in a position where time was of the essence.

 **"Barry, that's impossible, you would have to run over 900 miles an hour to do that. You have never run that fast. I don't know if you can take it. At the trials both you and Caitlin never made it over 650"** Cisco replied

 **"What if I try to freeze it?"** Caitlin interjected **"Would my powers manage to dampen the momentum of the storm, slow it down so that Barry could unravel it?"** After a moment of silence the answer came

 **"Yes, that's possible. If you manage to slow down the winds by momentarily cooling the air, then the rotational momentum of the storm would drop and Barry might be able to crash it in on itself"**

 **"Barry, Caitlin. I know I have made mistakes in my life and maybe not calling you heroes was one of them. There are metas out there that want just to kill people. I know you can help us stop them. Now go!" Wells' voice came from the earpieces. "You can do this"**

The two looked at each other and nodded. Caitlin started to shoot beams of frost from her hands toward the storm while Barry ran directly at it, around and around in the opposite direction. Joe was sitting on the sidelines looking at the two people that were trying to stop this monster of nature, two people, one that had the power to run faster than he could perceive and one that could shoot ice beams from her hands. **" _I need to get some sleep"_** he thought to himself as if he was already dreaming.

Their plan worked, the cold temperatures Caitlin was producing managed to slow down the storm enough so that Barry could stop it. When the tornado dissipated, Barry collapsed near Joe from exhaustion, the wind having taken his mask down.

 **"I didn't think there were other people like me"** Mardon hissed, pulling a gun on Barry

 **"No!"** a shriek could be heard from Caitlin which projected a long ice spear into his arm making him wince in pain. He tried to pick up the gun again only for Joe to shoot him, leaving him dead on the ground. Caitlin looked at their vitals. Both of them were severely spent and more of her hair had turned silver, but after she stopped using her powers, it returned to its normal color.

 **"Barry?"** Joe looked at him with disbelief in his eyes.

 **"Are you all right?"** Caitlin was next to him in a flash of light, the wind produced by her movement blew by Joe's face. He looked at him, then at her, then he spoke the only thing that made sense to him at that time

 **"Caitlin?"** he inquired.

 **"Yeah, it's me, Joe"** She pulled her mask down as his expression became more and more disbelieving.

 **"We need to go. Can you stand, Barry?"** she asked while helping him get to his feet.

 **"Yes. Are you all right, Joe?"** He nodded **"What about Eddie?"**

 **"He's inside, unconscious"** before he could finish Caitlin flashed past him and went inside to check on Eddie. After a few minutes, she came back.

 **"He's fine. Only a minor concussion. Whatever hit him just knocked the wind out of him. I put him in the car so he can rest"** she smiled at the detective that breathed a sigh of relief knowing his partner was in no danger.

 **"Thank you, Caitlin. Thank you both for the help."** Before he could finish Caitlin blacked out, Barry flashing in an instant to keep her up so she wouldn't fall face first into the dirt... Barry was immediately checking his gauntlet for her vitals. She was in no danger, but as he surmised using her powers did exhaust her **" _It must not be easy freezing a tornado that spins at 900 miles per hour"_** He thought to himself.

 **"I need to take Cait back to STAR. She used too much of her energy"** Barry took Caitlin into his arms and left in a flash of lightning.

 **"Be safe"** Joe responded as the trail of lightning disappeared heading further into the city. Ever since Henry asked him to take care of Barry he was skeptical about their story. Lightning inside a house, a man in the lightning that killed his mother, that was hilarious for Joe, until that moment when he saw two people that were doing exactly that. Maybe it was time that he started taking it his story seriously, because what he saw … now was reality. As Barry ran toward STAR, Caitlin woke up in his arms prompting him to stop running and put her on a bench, checking around if the coast was clear. It would have been pretty awkward to see two masked people just resting.

 **"Are you all right? You went out like a light"** he asked her with worry in his voice

 **"I think I might have used up all my energy. However, it seems to be fine now. How long was I out?"** she asked

 **"Not long, maybe a couple of minutes, take a rest, we can get back to the lab in due time"** he urged her while he sat down as well.

After an hour, the two returned to STAR Labs greeted by a grinning Cisco and a smiling Harrison Wells. Which was strange because to Barry it looked like he never smiled.

 **"Great job you two. I see the suits held up too"** beamed Cisco.

 **"Yeah, except Caitlin blacked out"** Barry retorted

 **"We need to find out why that happened. Until then, I shall try to not freeze anymore tornadoes that spin at over 900 mph"** Caitlin smiled at them.

 **"Barry, you were unfocused out there. What was on your mind?"** Wells asked the million-dollar question

 **"Something keeps popping in my head"** he sighed sitting on a bed pulling down his mask **. "When I was 11 my mother was murdered right in front of me. When I came down there was a circle of lightning in the living room. Red and Orange lightning and I saw a man in a yellow suit in the lightning. Before I could figure out what happened I was a few blocks away. When I returned, I found my mother stabbed in the heart and the police took away my father for her murder. The shrinks and psychologists all told me that could not be true. That I was seeing things from the trauma"** He continued **"The arresting officer took pity on me and took me in. But he was a good father and I love him and my adoptive sister"**

 **"Wait, Joe is the one who arrested your father?"** Caitlin chimed in **"You didn't tell me that"** she whined softly

 **"I didn't want to add more to your problems"** Barry smiled toward her. Cisco just sat there with his jaw on the floor. He had no idea that he had such sorrow in his life.

 **"Now, however, Caitlin and I have become the impossible that I was looking for all my life. This leads me to think that the person that killed my mother was like us. A speedster. There doesn't seem to be another explanation to what I saw that night"** Barry continued.

 **"I can safely say that you two are unique"** Wells replied to him **"As much as we know now at least"** A loud noise could be heard in the Cortex. Barry's stomach was whining as well as Caitlin's. Which made her blush scarlet red in embarrassment.

 **"Pizza's on me"** Cisco smiled **"Or maybe you want to go catch a coffee and eat at Jitters?"**

 **"I could go for some pizza. How about you, Cait?"** the speedster smiled at her.

 **"I swear Barry Allen if I get fat because of you** " she smiled playfully hitting Barry on the arm **"Yes, pizza is good with me"** Cisco went out to get the pizza and Harrison Wells went back to his lab leaving the two alone in the cortex looking at the mannequins that now had their suits on them.

 **"If you'd have told me a year ago that I'd become a superhero, I would have told you you're nuts"** he smiled at her

 **"If you'd have told me that, I'd probably have you committed. I never saw myself as the superhero, Barry"** She replied to him truthfully.

 **"You would always be someone's superhero. You're a doctor, a bioengineer and a geneticist, you would have saved lives without needing super speed or ice powers"** Barry put his hand around her waist. She felt safe with him. Something that she had not felt for a long time in her life. Not since after her father died. Not even knowing Ronnie was around made her feel as safe as she felt now. She rather missed the long talks they would have while they were sleeping as well. Nevertheless, she couldn't bring herself to tell him that.

 **"Barry Allen, always the flatterer. You're a doctor too now"** she laughed while her head rested on Barry's shoulder. She was a bit unnerved by the fact that Barry was acting so comfortable around her. She did not like to be touched, all her life she kept her distance from people, but with Barry Allen it was different. She didn't feel awkward around him and she liked that, moreover it seemed that he was completely comfortable with her around as well.

 **"Not flattery if it's true. I might have your knowledge, but I don't have the credentials. I doubt I could actually be a doctor in a hospital. Besides, I like running at superhuman speeds and destroying tornadoes"** he gave her one of his smiles. Somehow, he was given the rare opportunity to see a facet of Caitlin Snow he did not know existed. For a little while, her face seemed carefree and not pained by the loss of her brother, or the trouble in her life. He liked that new way in which he had seen her.

 **West residence. Sometime later.**

Joe was sitting on his couch with a large box in front of him. It contained all the evidence from the Allen Murder several years prior. Before, he had looked at the witness statements ( those witnesses mainly being Barry and Henry) and totally disregarded them. He thought they were fabrications, something that they both made up to try to keep Henry out of Prison, but after all that he had seen that night, he started to look at the case with new found eyes. He was determined to help Barry find his mother's killer. Now that he had evidence that he was not telling lies.


	6. Multiplier

Caitlin woke up to the distinct feeling of something being amiss. It was as if she had been left out of something very important and that irked her to no end. That feeling immediately turned what was to be the start of a nice day to something not so comfortable. She got dressed and flashed over to STAR Labs.

Barry was out all morning saving people around the city. In the Cortex, Cisco was directing him to his targets unknown to Caitlin or Wells. He had managed to stop a robbery, pull a few people out of a fire and now he took a break awaiting for more instructions from his friend.

 **"What else you got for me, Cisco?"** he asked over the comms. In that precise moment, he heard in his ear a familiar whoosh. Caitlin had flashed back in the Cortex dressed as usual in a black pencil skirt and white blouse with heels.

 **"Barry, it's Caitlin"** the sweet voice sounded in his ear

 **"Good morning, Dr. Snow. How's your day?"** he tried to sound as nonchalantly as possible, but obviously failing miserably

 **"It could be better, if someone had told me that they would be going out to save people in the city and I would be out there helping that someone. However, as it stands now, I'm pretty irked. Get back to STAR, now"** he could almost feel the annoyance in her voice.

 **"On my way"** he responded turned off his com and started to run.

 **"Don't be mad at him. With his powers right now, it's like he is a kid in a candy store. He didn't even think about going out there and not saving some people for breakfast"** Cisco tried to excuse Barry's outing. He handed Caitlin a cup of coffee **"I see you didn't manage to go to Jitters. Good thing I thought ahead and had Barry bring two coffees here earlier"**

 **"Thanks"** Caitlin replied getting the cup of hot liquid only to be turned into a mass of frozen coffee almost breaking the cup it was in **"Great, this morning can't get any more annoying now can it"**

The engineer could see the way she was acting. She didn't even manage to control her powers right, because she was so annoyed with what Barry was doing. He put that to the fact that the speedster had gone out without her. As Barry ran back to the Labs, he started to feel dizzy and had to put his hand on a dumpster that was near him to be able to stay upright. **" _This is similar to what happened to Caitlin that night. Maybe the running around all morning was a bit too much. I'll take it easy the rest of the day"_** he grumbled to himself and in a matter of minutes he was back at STAR labs only to be greeted with an annoyed face by Caitlin and a large grin by Cisco.

 **"Why didn't you call me?"** she asked him pretty bluntly, anger seeping out through her voice

 **"I didn't want to wake you? I know you were tired so I just went out for a jog … and some superhero business on the side. I didn't think you'd mind"** he apologized

 **"I do mind. Barry, even if I don't go with you I need to know what you do. Maybe you get into trouble, maybe you need a doctor or maybe you need backup. I need to be here even if I am not out there with you. Although to be fair. I would prefer that I was with you out there for reasons you can probably understand yourself. Next time wake me up, do you get me?"** she gave him one of her patented lectures. Barry could not understand if the lectures were part of Caitlin's normal worry routine about a friend or worry for his life, but he took them standing.

 **"Yes, Cait. I get it. I'll wake you up next time. But you have to do something for me too"** the speedster smiled at her

 **"What is it?"** her face a bit worried about the thing she might need to agree to

 **"If I wake you up at 6 in the morning to go running with me. I don't want to hear complaining out of you"** he smiled remembering at what time he woke up that morning.

 **"You won't, you love your sleep too much to get up at 6, but the same goes for you. No whining. If anyone wants to go out running, the other goes along or at least stays in the cortex to monitor them. Agreed?"** She was driving a hard bargain, but Barry say the wisdom in her words and besides after managing to stop Mardon, they were partners anyway.

 **"Agreed"** He smiled and extended a hand toward her **"Partner".** She extended her hand in return and they shook on it.

 **"You know Barry, you might be the only person that I've seen that can tick off Caitlin like that. Well, except Ronnie that is"** Cisco commented

 **"Mr. Allen"** They both heard a voice coming from the entrance. **"We are only beginning to understand the capabilities of your physical make up. I would not like to sound like a broken record, but I do caution restraint. The same goes for you, Dr. Snow** " Wells put a bit of impact in what he was saying. They could see that he wasn't fully on board with what they were doing. Barry's phone started to ring.

 **"Hey, Joe. What's up?"** he inquired

 **"I'm at a crime scene, policemen helping with the crowd, detectives taking witness statements, there are miles and miles of that yellow tape you like so much. I'm also missing something. Would you like to venture a guess as to what I'm missing, Barry?"** the CSI cringed knowing exactly what Joe was missing and replied

 **"I'll be right there"** He closed the call **"My day job beckons"** the others didn't even manage to say anything and he was gone

 **"When do you think he'll realize that he didn't take his clothes?"** Wells smiled visibly amused by Barry's carelessness

 **"I'll go and get those to him. I doubt the NCPD allows cosplay as proper attire. That's even if they think it's cosplay and not put him in a mental institution first"** Caitlin flashed out of the cortex holding a small bag with the clothes Barry left on the bed.

 **"I guess none of them actually know what restraint means, huh?"** Wells commented rather annoyed as he left the cortex.

Barry came to a skidding stop behind the corner of the building in front of which the crime scene was at which time he realized that he didn't have his clothes with him.

 **"Damn"** he muttered annoyed **"What a time to forget my normal clothes at the lab"** He looked at a shop across the street and with a smirk felt the world slow down around him as he prepared himself to speed in the shop to get himself some clothes, when he felt a hand on his shoulder stopping him.

 **"You seem to have forgotten something, Mr. Allen. Do you think the detectives will understand your choice of costume to show up for work?"** When he turned he came face to face with a grinning Caitlin, which was standing in front of him with a bag of clothes **"Or would you rather go there dressed in a tight spandex outfit?"**

 **"Cait, I could kiss you right now. Thank you for bringing me my clothes"** he blurted taking the bag away from her and changing into his civilian clothes. He did notice the boots that she was wearing were the ones from her costume not her usual heels **"I think you mixed and matched something there"** he laughed while she pouted, but the reminded him why she had to do that.

 **"If you think that I'm going to ruin a pair of shoes every time something happens in this city you are sadly mistaken"** she replied feeling a bit flustered about the whole kissing thing. Feeling that Barry noticed. It was the same as her being afraid the last time. There were feelings that he could pick up on coming from her, but only now he had realized their source. He had no reason to feel flustered and the only person that those feelings could be coming from was the woman that was standing in front of him.

 **"I need to go get ready for the presentation that Simon Stagg is giving. To which I have been invited along with Cisco and Dr. Wells. So I guess I shall see you later"** As she turned to leave she realized that he didn't receive any sort of invitation and all of them were going. Somehow that felt off to her **"Or you can come with me to the presentation if you want?"** she turned around to find a stunned Barry that was trying to process the question in his head.

 **"Sure. I'd be happy to come as your plus one** " he grinned after a few seconds of thought

 **"Not my plus one, you dork"** She smiled **"I can get you an invitation as well"**

 **"No need, I'd rather much go as your plus one"** He gave her one of those carefree smiles she loved. **"Have to go or Singh will have my head. See you tonight, Cait"** but before she could reply he was already running toward the crime scene.

 **"See you tonight, Barry"** She stood there in a bit of a daze, coming back to her senses a bit later and flashed away on her way back to STAR labs. While she was running, her mind was racing **" _Did I really ask Barry Allen out on a date? No that can't be, but I would like him to come with us. He has been a part of the team for as long as I was in a coma. Yes, that's it"_** she tried to talk her out of thinking that this was a date.

Barry reached the crime scene and went straight in starting to examine everything that was in the store. He noticed a couple of cracked display cases and some stuff missing, He had heard Joe talking about the fact that at least 6 weapons were taken along with other firearms and enough ammo for an army. Then he took a close look at the ground, there were a lot of tracks there. Way too many for one person. He started moving around trying to figure out how many people there were there and reached a conclusion a few minutes later.

 **"Joe, mind coming over here for a bit?"**

 **"What is it Bar?"** the detective came to him

 **"We aren't looking for just one person. There were at least 6 people here judging by the number of tracks and the way they superimpose each other. I heard you earlier that there were at least 6 of everything stolen including a lot of ammo. We aren't looking for one person. We're looking for a crew"** he concluded. With his mind going, he managed to go as far as making a fool out of himself by somehow implying the captain's shoe size was making him a suspect, to which Joe face palmed even harder. He excused himself and ran back to the precinct to process the evidence, not before Joe did stop him outside of the store.

 **"I'm sorry for being late"**

 **"You know, I hear I'm sorry so much these days that you might think that's my nickname"** Joe completed bitterly.

 **"I have a lot on my plate right now and I'm trying to cope, ok?"** Barry told him visibly annoyed by his attitude

 **"So do I. You didn't mention anything to Iris about this … right?"** the detective asked bluntly.

 **"No. I don't mean to. I made you a promise"** the speedster remembered the promise he made to his foster father to keep Iris away of any of this.

 **"You have made lots of promises in the past and broke them Barry. Try to keep this one, because there were a lot you didn't keep. Remember, that time you promised to be nice and study, back when you first came to me? Well that went to hell pretty quickly. On the other hand, how about the time when you promised not to look for ways to get your father out of prison? The next day I found you in the library looking for escape routes. Alternatively, that time you promised to clean the kitchen, only for me to find you in your room reading. I can give you many examples and even if you managed to keep your promises in the end, most of them started with breaking them, almost off the bat as you made them. Try to make this one not to be the same as the others"** Joe said as he turned back to enter the store. The speedster was annoyed by his answer, but he knew the detective was right. He just left the crime scene and flashed back to the lab, it irked him that instead of offering a helping hand his adoptive father would only try to put him down more. Luckily, he has someone that would always make him smile and he started to count the hours until he was going to meet her.

Barry was busy analyzing the evidence from the crime scene for the last hour when he saw Iris come in. She was dressed rather nicely, but something in her demeanor told him that he had forgotten something.

 **"Hey, Iris, what are you doing here?"** he inquired

 **"My paper, remember? You were supposed to explain to me the science behind it before I go to the Stagg presentation tonight"** she replied

 **"Oh god, I completely forgot. There was a lot of commotion this morning. I just came back from a crime scene"** Barry tried to excuse himself.

 **"I don't care. You said you were going to explain it to me and you are going to, right now"** Iris was being excessively forceful for something that she could have done some research herself and rather easily at that. That in itself made Barry suspicious.

 **"Iris, I'm working. Can't we do this later after I've finished?"** he pointed to the evidence that needed to be processed which was on the table.

 **"It's either now or tonight at the presentation. Which is it going to be? I don't mind if it's now or then"** she smiled toward him

 **"Now it is then"** Barry answered bluntly putting down the evidence he was working on.

 **"Wow, ok"** the speed with which that answer came out of his mouth was stating the obvious. Barry did not want to go to the presentation with her. He would much rather explain to her the science right now. **"I guess you don't want to go to the presentation with me then. Barry is something wrong? I feel like you have been avoiding me for the last few months"**

 **"It might be because of Eddie. I know you two are dating. I try not to meddle in peoples affairs, especially when something like that is involved. In the past, I tried and only managed to make things worse. Even if we are family, poking into someone else's love life is something I don't really want to do unless the person comes to me specifically for advice"** Barry tried his luck. In the flashes, he had before Iris was dating Eddie. The worse that could happen right now would be that she gets mad at him for saying stupid stuff. Instead, the reaction was the complete opposite.

 **"How, what, where? Since when have you known?"** Iris's eyes went wide.

 **"I saw you being cuddly and kissing at Jitters. If you are trying to keep it under wraps, then you are really not doing a good job of it"** Barry smiled knowing he had something on Iris that might come in handy later.

 **"You cannot tell Dad. He will freak"** She tried to backpedal about her relationship

 **"I won't. It's not my place to tell him and I was joking with you. The fact is I have not been avoiding you. You know how busy I was trying to see if I could help Caitlin with her coma. Also I can't come with you to the presentation because someone else already asked me and I said yes"** He had the widest grin on his face right then and there.

 **"Barry Allen I didn't know you were such a dog. A few days out of your coma"** she winked as she said that. **"And you already have a date. Who's the lucky girl?"**

 **"It's not a date"** he defended himself **"She asked me and you already know who it is. Why do you ask? It's not like you cared about my social life until now"**

 **"Caitlin?"**

 **"Yep. She along with Cisco and Dr. Wells were invited to the presentation. I was left out since I'm not actually part of the team according to everyone. Therefore, I'm going as her plus one. Because it would be weird if I was going as Cisco's plus one, now wouldn't it"** he began to babble, not realizing the smile Iris had on her face.

 **"Oh my god, Barry you are such a blind bat. It's totally a date. You know what I'm going to leave you to finish your work and then go home and make yourself presentable. You can explain the science behind the presentation tomorrow or the day after. I have to get the article ready by the end of the week anyway. See you later"** she hurried out of the office.

Iris was annoyed about that fact, but her facial expressions didn't really give her away. She knew she had no right to be angry about him going at that presentation with someone else, she was dating Eddie, but somehow it was something that did not sit right with her. Was it something sisterly or something deeper? She couldn't answer that question. The cutting answer that Barry had given her also put a knot in the back of her mind. She could honestly not remember if she ever cared about his social life, sure, she would ask him about how everything was, but that was more out of politeness, since he would listen to her rant about her own relationships.

The CSI was left in shock in his lab. **" _Wait, is this really a date? Nah. That couldn't be it. Why would Caitlin ask me out on a date? I mean she might have given me some hints that she's comfortable around me but that's all. In any case, I cannot look bad. I need to look appropriate. It would be really unfortunate for me if the others look really good and I look like crap"_** He thought to himself as most of the tests were finished. He went down, left them on Joe's desk and went home to get ready for the gala. He was supposed to meet Caitlin outside the building the gala was taking place in two hours. He finished what he had to do and sped home to change.

Barry arrived just in time, contrary to his record of tardiness and saw someone waiting in the front of the building for him. On closer inspection, he saw Caitlin Snow. She was wearing a long blue evening dress, which was cut down the back and down the right side. The dress hugged her curves and her beautiful chestnut hair was waving in the wind. The sight hit him like a truck to the point that he stopped, in her range of vision even, to gawk at how elegant she had dressed. She saw him and for a few seconds she couldn't figure out why he was sitting there dumbstruck, so she waved him over.

 **"Barry Allen, not being late to something, that's new"** she commented

 **"I couldn't let such a beautiful woman wait for me. What kind of gentleman would I be?"** Barry finally breathed in and out trying to calm himself. **"You look amazing, Cait"** he managed to say between the breaths.

 **"You clean up well yourself, Barry"** Caitlin was trying to hide the creeping blush that appeared on her face at the moment she heard Barry call her amazing, which was amplified by the realization that the reason Barry was sitting dumb struck outside gawking was, indeed, her.

The two went inside and joined Cisco and Dr. Wells, which had already arrived. Barry could see the way people would look at him. Like he was a criminal, with spite and even fear in some places. He saw now more than before how bad the particle acceleration affected his reputation. Moreover, not only his, as beautiful as Caitlin was, people had the same demeanor toward her as they had toward Dr. Wells, which saddened Barry to no end.

When the address finished, Simon Stagg accepting his award as well as going a bit into his research, the four people started to move toward the exit when 4 masked men entered with guns and locked the doors. Something looked off to Barry. It was as if they were the same person. Same clothes, same bandana, even the same gun.

 **"This is a robbery. How nice of you people to wear your best trinkets to this gala. It's like you knew that we were coming to rob you. Fork them over and nobody gets hurt"** One of them said, the others starting to move around the people in the gathering with pouches threatening to shoot them if they did not give up their valuables.

Barry saw Caitlin instinctively touch the necklace she was wearing, but when the robbers demanded it she had to give it up, at which point she fell to her knees with a face that almost made you want to cry. Barry took her in his arms and she began sobbing quietly. As the robbers moved on to other people, and the speedster realizing he can't do anything with the amount of people present without giving himself away, he decided to ask her about the necklace

 **"Cait, that necklace, it's important to you isn't it?"**

 **"Ronnie bought it for me. The first gift he bought me with the first paycheck he got from working with us on the Particle Accelerator. Important, I think important is an understatement"** She was still sobbing. It took her a little but she calmed down being in his arms and said with a steel determination in her eyes **"I want that back. We need to go after these robbers"**

 **"My sentiments exactly. We need to wait for them to exit first. Then we see what we do"** the speedster replied. As the thieves were about to go out they saw the guard that was trying to call for help and as he moved one of the men shot him. He fell down and blood started to snake its way on the pavement. The robbers all ran outside

 **"Go after them"** Caitlin told him **"I need to stay and make sure the guard is ok"** He nodded and flashed out the door. He didn't even go after his suit, he just left. He managed to reach them and take the purse he knew that it had her necklace in it, but as he tried to move further he felt himself weaken. With all the power he had left, he ran back putting her necklace in his coat before falling unconscious in the back of an alley.

 **He woke up back at STAR Labs in the Cortex. A worried Caitlin moving around him checking his vitals and seeing if he had something broken.**

 **"Hey, what happened to me?"** he asked with a low voice

 **"It seems that you have had another black out. The same type that I had back when I was trying to freeze that tornado. I thought this was something that couldn't happen at random, but since it did we need to find out exactly why. I talked to Cisco to build for us something that would not break under our speed and see why we're both blacking out"** She seemed sad, somehow in the whole commotion she had forgotten all about her necklace. Barry stood up and looked at her.

 **"Well, the thieves got away, but not before I managed to recover this"** he put his hand back in his coat and took the necklace out handing it to her. The reaction was something that Barry had never seen. Her face lit up almost instantly, she began to smile and cry at the same time, her eyes fixated on the necklace that she now had in her hand.

 **"How did you manage to take this back?"** she asked wiping away her tears as not to make her mascara run on her face.

 **"That was the first thing that I retrieved. I knew it meant something to you. But when I felt myself running out of juice, instead of trying to take them down I just was happy with that and ran back before I blacked out"** he answered cheerfully

 **"Thank you so much Barry. You have no idea what this means to me"** Caitlin told him with a beautiful genuine smile. Something that made Barry happy to no end seeing.

 **"Actually, I do. The only thing I have of my mother is her engagement ring. Everything else except the occasional picture I have of her is gone. I thought about what happened if someone tried to steal that from me and I instantly knew how you were feeling"** he smiled at her softly.

 **"Even if you think you do, this should give you a better idea about how much it does mean to me that you got it back"** Caitlin leaned over him and kissed his lips. It was supposed to only a short peck to show him her gratitude, but it turned out to be something else entirely. The contact was electric, her lips started to feel like burning. Before she closed her eyes she noticed that the world was standing still. The kiss prompting a non-expected activation of their speed as their hearts started to race out of the normal into another otherworldly realm. While in reality, their kiss lasted less than a few seconds, to anyone outside looking simply as the short peck it was actually intended to be, for both of them it felt like minutes.

 **"Wow"** That was all that Barry could say after they had separated. Giving Caitlin a blank look like he had just experienced something out of this world.

 **"Yeah. Wow"** In her case it was something so passionate and burning that it was completely new to her. It was electrifying, molten and yet soft and beautiful. She might have had other boyfriends before, but none of them managed to make her feel as giddy, blank and content with a kiss as Barry just did.

 **"That was something else"** Barry managed to break the awkward silence that was now leaning between them. Luckily, Cisco saved the day by strolling into the Cortex whistling.

 **"Glad to see you`re up Barry. Caitlin, I managed to build a treadmill that will withstand both your speeds. Whenever you two are ready we should see why you are having these blackouts"**

 **"We can begin now"** Barry got up from the bed he was on.

 **"The sooner the better"** she added **"We can't save people or run around the city patrolling, knowing that at any time one of us might just, black out and fall face first into the pavement, while running at 600 miles per hour"** They both changed into their suits and Barry went on the treadmill and started running while Caitlin was monitoring him. Dr. Wells had joined them. While Barry was running both Caitlin and Wells noticed something in his vitals that was worrying. The more he put into his speed, which was now at a staggering 700 miles per hour, the more his vitals were spiking.

 **"Caitlin, do you see what I see?"** Wells asked while pointing at a list of numbers

 **"Yeah. The more he is pushing himself, the lower his blood sugar gets"** She acknowledged what he had shown her.

 **"Barry, I think we know why you keep"** a loud thud interrupted him. Barry was now on his back in the middle of the cardboard wall that Cisco had built in the back of the treadmill as "padding" **"blacking out"** he finished.

They took him into the Cortex and put up some IV's with glucose up for him and then they returned to test Caitlin. As she ran she kept an eye on her gauntlet. She saw the same problem with her as with Barry. The more she pushed herself to go faster, the more her blood sugar dropped. She stopped before actually falling flat on her face like Barry did. After a few hours, the speedster finally managed to wake up.

 **"Did I black out again on the treadmill?"** he asked concerned.

 **"Yes, but now we know why. Acute functional failure due to hypoglycemia. We had to give you 40 IV glucose to even get you to wake up"** Caitlin responded and pointed toward the pole that had a ton of empty IV bags tied to it.

 **"And you have the same problem?"** he asked.

 **"Yep"** She replied

 **"So, by what you`re telling me we aren't eating enough"** Barry concluded

 **"Yes, by my calculations with a bit of help from Cisco, we would need to consume about 10000 calories a day to keep our systems recharged so we don't black out again"** the doctor told him what she had discovered while he was taking a nap

 **"10000 a day? Oh my, Dr. Snow, you might actually get fat"** Barry laughed

 **"Shut up"** she smiled **"You know that won't happen"**

 **"There is something else we have found out. Remember when you said to me that your cells have some empty space in them?"** he nodded so she continued **"right now that empty space is nowhere to be found. I took some samples from you and me and compared them. Your cells and mine output a great deal of energy. My cells however seem to have a lower energy potential than yours. I suspect this is because I can control ice. They seem to feed on the energy I have when I use my ice powers and when I run. Yours get depleted only when you run"** she explained to him her findings.

 **"So what you`re saying, if you use your ice powers while you`re running it will slow you down. Not by a lot, but it still will since both types of power use the same cellular energy. Is that about the summary of it?"** Barry concluded

 **"Yes. Which makes perfect sense. Like trying to power two light bulbs from the same battery"** Caitlin thought of a good analogy. Before any of them could continue, Wells joined the conversation.

 **"I found some blood from one of them on the emblem of your suit. I don't know how it got there. However, we know now who was that robbed that place. His name is Danton Black. He's an ex-employee of Stagg's"** Wells stated while searching through some records.

Meanwhile at a Stagg warehouse somewhere in the city, Joe and Eddie were following a lead. Barry had let them in on the identity of the person that could only be hunting Stagg from the evidence he had gathered. It was funny, the number of ex disgruntled employees who wanted to kill their bosses had skyrocketed after the Particle accelerator explosion.

The two detectives didn't think that they would actually run into Black here. But they did. The man started attacking the guards and shooting at them. Not only that but he started multiplying. What Joe had seen, even with Barry's speed and Caitlin's ice did not make him draw a face of surprise when one man became two, then three and started to advance toward his position shooting. It was pretty clear when he started making copies that they were pretty much outmatched.

He didn't know what to do, but before he had to even think about it, two blurs popped inside the warehouse. The red one hitting the copies and Black so hard that they literally flew a couple of feet back. The blue one stopped. He could see Caitlin looking over the guard that was shot and in a moment's notice she was gone with him and then back again.

She smiled toward Joe and went to help Barry in trying to catch Black, which continued to multiply. After a couple of minutes, the clones started disappearing and to both their disappointment Black was nowhere to be found.

 **"Damn it"** Barry mutter under his breath **"He must have slipped out while we were busy with the copies"**

 **"Yeah, that's annoying"** Caitlin muttered both of them speeding over to Joe.

 **"You all right, Joe?"** Barry asked him

 **"Thanks for the help guys. I need to apologize to you, Barry"** Joe uttered

 **"For ... what?"** asked Caitlin, but Barry knew exactly what he was talking about

 **"I… I was kind of hard on him today, Caitlin"** he continues while turning toward his adopted son **" I don't want you to be a hero because I am afraid that you will get yourself killed. I don't think I can stomach more of my family dying, which is why I was so overprotective"** Joe replied, his eyes looking down. **"But, I came to the conclusion that the police cannot handle these super powered metahumans. If there's someone that can it's you. Along with someone that could have quite a nice part in Frozen, because she shoots ice spears"** Barry chuckled

 **"Hey!"** Caitlin replied with a grin **"if you start calling me Elsa I'll make sure you need permanent snow tires for your car"** she mock threatened the detective.

 **"That is a good question. What do I call you anyway? " He asked as they were walking away "It would be a problem to call you by your name while you two help us. I already know this guy"** hitting Barry's arm **"as the Streak"**

 **"Actually, I was thinking of calling myself the Flash"** Barry muttered under his breath **"Streak sounds like someone that jumps out of alleyways in nothing but a trench coat to scare the passersby"** Joe and Caitlin started to laugh. After a moment realizing what he said he started to laugh as well.

 **"I don't know. We've been so busy finding out about our powers that we never really thought about superhero names. For now, just call me"** a voice inside her chimed in **" _Frost"_**. She had no idea where it came from, but deciding the name as being accurate she continued **"Frost"**

 **"Really?"** Barry started to smile **"Frost is the best you could come up with, Dr. Snow?"**

 **"Shut up"** She smiled at him **"And no, Cisco does not get to veto this name. I kind of like it"**

 **"To tell you the truth, so do I** " Barry smiled at her.

 **"So Flash and Frost, huh? I have a feeling that the next couple of months are going to be really interesting"** Joe concluded as he got into his car and drove away from the scene. The two gave each other a look the nodded and sped back to STAR Labs.

Barry and Caitlin with the help of doctor Wells had spent a couple of long hours trying to find any sort of way to differentiate the original Danton Black from his clones. Caitlin went as far as taking his cells that they had harvested from Barry and put them in a protein gel to see if anything would happen.

 **"So you are saying this guy can literally make copies of himself?"** Cisco commented while working at the consoles trying to find out a link between Black and Stagg, beside what they already knew, something that would help them predict his next attack.

 **"Yeah. He's like a living Xerox machine. We saw him make at least 7 copies while we were trying to catch him"** Caitlin nodded

 **"Wicked almost like …"** he sat a bit and thought about a name for their new villain **"He was multiplexing himself. Wait. Multiplex. YES. That's what we're going to call him"** Cisco was too happy with himself that he had found a name he liked for the villain. Barry scoffed at the name, however it did seem fitting so he decided not to give Cisco a hard time about it, even though sometimes the engineer had a total lack of inspiration.

After a while, from the cells that they had, Caitlin grew a perfect copy of Black. Only this particular organism was lifeless. As Wells stated only minimal motor cortex function and nothing else. It was clear that the clones were receivers; Black could direct them like automatons to do his bidding. Seeing how he controlled his clones, Caitlin came up with a hypothesis and decided to run it by Barry.

 **"Hey, Barry. There might be a way to find out where the real Black is "He looked at her curious "This came to me due to our own blacking out. Making and controlling those clones probably requires …"** she did not manage to finish her sentence before Barry finished it for her.

 **"Either strength or mental acuity. That power must get its energy from somewhere"**

 **"Precisely"** She smiled at him finishing her sentence. It was happening quite regularly now especially when they were talking science **"Which means that the real one would show signs of fatigue or mental stress. That is how well find the real Danton Black"**

 **"Guys? He's at the Stagg industries building. More than likely going in for the kill"** Cisco announced the two. Before his face went back down to the consoles in front of him, the two were already out the door dressed in their costumes.

A minute later they entered the building seeing quite a few of Black's copies almost filling the floor. They nodded at each other, as they already knew what to do. Barry and Caitlin sped through the clones looking the most minuscule signs of fatigue. From her peripheral vision, she noticed that in the slowed time one of the Blacks was sweating and panting. Without giving it a second thought, she grabbed him and shoved him into a pole rendering him unconscious. In a moment's notice, all the other clones stopped and fell down motionless, as if their remote control had stopped transmitting. Flash grabbed him and they both sped back to STAR labs.

 **"Nice one, Cait"** Barry commented while they were on their way **"or should I call you Frost, too"** he smiled widely at her.

 **"Well, you know how it is with secret identities. How about Frost when we're out in the public view and Cait when it's just us. What do you say to that, Flash?"** she smiled sweetly back

 **"You got it, Frost"** The two continued their banter all the way back to the lab, being happy that another metahuman was caught, but by the time they got there they noticed that Black was dead.

 **"Did we just ….?"** Barry asked with a grim sigh

 **"No. His clones took too much out of him I guess. He was still alive after I knocked him out. I checked. I guess there's no point in keeping him here. You should drop him at the CCPD morgue. Just make sure nobody sees you"** she cleared up his thought. She noticed the dark shadow on his face when he realized he might have killed someone. He was not a killer, and she knew that, but was stranger still, she could feel his anguish and discomfort at the thought. It was strange; she knew right away those were not hers. She did not feel discomfort near Barry at all ever since they started saving the city together and anguish was just for the nights when she was home alone thinking about Ronnie's death and her unsolved issues with her mother.

This was something completely new to her and it baffled her immensely, she quickly thought about something that might have happened to them because of the lightning, but she put it aside for now classifying it as a random occurrence.


	7. Poison

**It was early morning when Barry received a call from the precinct. It was Joe with what he would affectionately start to call "morning murder"**. It sounded corny in his head, kind of like a family drama / procedural show that would star kids. The thought alone made him laugh aloud since that would probably not be something kids should see. The Saturday morning cartoon shows were all but dead and with all that had been going on he could see something like **"Morning Murder Madness Mayhem"** as a procedural cop show starring kids replacing them. The world had indeed changed, as someone who spent his Saturday mornings watching cartoon, which was something that had not been possible for quite a while.

 **"Barry, there's been a murder. Well, several murders actually. I need you to get to 57th and Augusta immediately. Bring Caitlin, we might need an extra pair of eyes in here"** the voice told him.

 **"All right. We'll be there as soon as we can"** he closed the call dialing Caitlin. **"Morning Cait. Did I wake you?"** he questioned

 **"No, Barry. Good Morning. I was about to get in the car to get to STAR"** she replied quickly.

 **"Leave the car. Joe called, he needs me and he asked that I bring you along. I think we might be dealing with another metahuman case"** the CSI informed her

 **"Ok, where do I need to go?"** she inquired

 **"Meet me at 56th and Augusta. We can go from there"** he replied knowing that they couldn't flash in a crime scene.

 **"See you in 30"** the answer came and she closed the line.

It took Barry a minute and change to put on clothes brush his teeth and run out the door with his CSI kit. Two and a half minutes later he stopped in an alley behind 56th and Augusta. Caitlin was drinking her coffee as she grinned watching him skid to a stop.

 **"You're late"** she quipped at him making him roll his eyes

 **"That's what I get for having a speedster partner, now I'll be late for everything"** Barry said with a grimace.

 **"What took you so long? Did you have engine trouble all the way here? Or maybe did you forget to brake in time and had to come back from halfway across the city? You might be the fastest man alive, Barry, you just seem to be the slowest human alive when it comes to washing, shaving, dressing and getting to a crime scene in time"** She smirked toward the speedster that now had an amused face when he realized what she had just said **"Not my fault I was already outside when you called. You sleep too much"** she mused. **"Come on. We don't want to keep Joe waiting"** She grabbed his arm with a large smile on her face without too much thinking, which stunned him a bit. He did not expect that. The guarded Doctor Caitlin Snow acting so sweet and carefree.

The two arrived at the crime scene arm in arm, passing under the police line as Barry showed his badge to the patrol officer that was standing guard. He didn't have to say anything about Caitlin seeing that she was holding his arm. Joe looked over and noticed that they both wore smiles on their faces, something that was very unusual for Barry, especially when he woke him up from his slumber.

 **"Good morning"** he addressed the two.

 **"Hey, Joe"** Barry and Caitlin answered as just him continued **"So, what do we have?"**

 **"This is a restaurant owned by the Darbinian Crime Family. Last night a meeting took place between all the bosses in that Family and somehow ... they all ended up dead. We have no idea what happened. That's why I thought Dr. Snow could help"** He approached them and he whispered **"Especially now that she's as good of a CSI as you are a bioengineer"** and he smiled.

 **"Ah, the whole. Two heads are better than one. I couldn't agree with you more"** Barry smiled to his foster father

 **"Anything I can do to help, Joe"** Caitlin replied as her eyes moved over the completely sealed room with three bullet holes in the impenetrable glass that lead to the outside. The two started their investigation going through the crime scene and went their separate ways in the room looking for evidence. While that was happening, Eddie came over to the detective.

 **"I thought you called only Barry. What is Dr. Snow doing here?"** he questioned Joe

 **"She has CSI and medical knowledge, Eddie and this, you have to agree, presents itself as quite a strange murder, considering the doors were locked from the inside and nothing could get in. I thought we could use her expertise"**

 **"Oh, she's a CSI too? " Eddie was visibly surprised.**

 **"Yes, she has multiple degrees and is probably way smarter than the two of us. If she can help then, I'm not going to say no to that"** Joe stated bluntly as Eddie saw the wisdom in having two scientists on what he could only categorize as the weirdest mass murder case he had ever seen. After about an hour Caitlin and Barry went back to Joe to report what they had found, which was nothing short of strange.

 **"So, anything useful?"** Joe asked

 **"First and foremost. The doors had been closed from the inside. Whatever or _whoever_ attacked them must have been here already in hiding or managed to find a secondary way in"** Barry started.

 **"I have not been able to find a secondary access point to the room except the two ducts that are on the wall here and in the back, but those are too small for someone to crawl through. My guess would be that someone pumped toxic gas through the ducts, but ... there is something that does not add up in that particular scenario** " She motioned toward the way the bodies were positioned as Barry continued.

 **"See here Joe? The first 3 people were killed instantly, but then these two managed to make it all the way to the door to try to open it and then the last person to die managed to stay alive long enough to try to shoot out the glass. It was like …"**

 **"They were being hunted"** Caitlin finished his sentence. **"Like the gas had a mind of its own hunting down the victims one by one. The originating point seems to be the wall right in front of the duct"**

 **"So, what do you think? Regular poison gas attack or metahuman?"** Joe lowered his voice at the mention of metahumans.

 **"I would say metahuman"** Barry concluded and Caitlin nodded in approval **"Probably someone who can control gases or be able to control the state of a liquid. If they were being gassed from outside, then they would all start to feel its effects and had time to try to get to some avenue of escape. The way that the first two died instantly shows us that was not the way everything happened here"**

 **"We'll go to STAR and try to dig out what sort of metahuman this might be. We did not get any sort of identifiable prints or anything that could give us an idea of this person's identity. All we have is a degraded sample of the poison that killed them, which as you might imagine is not what you would call conclusive evidence"** Caitlin finished.

 **"Thank you for the help, Caitlin. You sure know your CSI stuff"** Joe joked looking at his son.

 **"You mean she sure knows my CSI stuff right?"** Barry gave them both a dopey smile

 **"Call me when you have something. Either from STAR or from the precinct. Ok?"** the detective told the two

 **"Will do"** Barry assured him as they were both walking away arm in arm. As they turned the corner, he picked up Caitlin and ran straight to STAR labs. As they were entering the lab she asked

 **"Why did you have to carry me? You know I can keep up with you"** she pouted

 **"Um, yes you can, but your shoes were smoking this morning and I thought I'd spare you the annoyance of buying another pair. Besides, I like those heels"** he smiled cheekily

 **"I can tell you where to buy yourself a pair"** she teased him all the while holding her breath to not explode in laughter.

 **"Ha. Ha. Ha. While I do like your obvious joke, Cait, I meant I like them _on you_ " **he replied and she felt like the wind had been suddenly taken out of her. She gulped down the air that she was holding from not laughing and her face turned to him surprised.

 **"Oh"** She smiled with a knot in her throat. Back in the Cortex Cisco and Wells were arguing.

 **"Mr. Ramon, the fact of the matter is that we need some place to keep those metahumans we capture. Sure, the first two weren't a problem since they died. However, those two aren't killers. Neither are we and we will want to capture them alive, most of the time. If we want to do that, we will need a place to keep them"**

 **"I know, Dr. Wells but where could we keep them? It's not like we can call up the CCPD and as for a secure wing in Iron heights for people with "special" powers, we would be probably taken to the closest nuthouse"** Both of them stopped instantly seeing Barry and Caitlin walked in **"Well aren't you two surprisingly chipper"** Wells commented looking at Barry's face.

 **"Yes, I love the smell of murder in the morning"** Barry replied which made Caitlin snicker and Cisco start to laugh. Sooner rather than later, they stopped realizing he wasn't kidding **"Yeah, I was called this morning to a murder which looked like it was done by a metahuman. Someone who could control toxic gas to be more precise."** Barry sat down on a chair as Caitlin continued his thought

 **"All the doors were locked. There was indication that the gas did not fill the room. More like it hunted its victims"**

 **"Look at you, Caitlin Snow CSI"** Cisco laughed, but the tone in his voice made it quite clear that he was proud of her " **I know you have the most PhD's in this room, but daaaaaamn"** Caitlin shrugged it off sitting down

 **"So what did we hear, do you guys want to make a Meta containment facility in STAR labs?"** she asked.

 **"Yes"** Wells explained **"We need to go down to the accelerator ring and see how we could manage that. At this point in time it would be the only logical place where we could keep our prisoners locked up and us relatively safe"** When she whose words being uttered she unconsciously started to bite her bottom lip almost like drifting away **"Caitlin? Did you hear me? We need to go down to the accelerator ring"**

 **"Dr. Wells"** Barry interjected reading her tell. She was always biting her bottom lip when she was upset or something was bothering her, but he could also feel the dread and the sadness coming off her **"I need Caitlin to analyze the poison gas sample that we have down at the precinct"**

 **"Ok, I do believe that has priority right now"** Wells agreed **"Don't you posess her knowledge now thought?"**

 **"I do, but this type of gas is nothing like we've seen before. The faster we manage to find out what it is, the faster we can get a killer off the street. That is why I would need Caitlin to come with me"**

 **"Ah, all right. That does make more sense. Go take care of that, me and Cisco can manage here"** he replied knowing that the two of them would have a better chance of coming up with something. At hearing his words her eyes almost immediately lit up. It was as if he knew that going down to the accelerator ring was something she was not willing to do … yet.

 **"If that's ok with you, Cait"** Barry finished

 **"Let's go. You are right, this takes precedence. I would like to catch this guy before he manages to get someone else killed"** the answer came back swiftly. The two flashed to the CCPD lab, Barry was asking himself what was the issue that Caitlin had with the Accelerator ring. He was making up hypotheses in his head but he concluded that going to the source was best. While they were running the tests, Barry decided to ask what was bothering her. It was not in his nature to be nosy, but he couldn't stand the look on her face when Wells mentioned the accelerator ring.

 **"Hey can I ask you a question? It's totally cool not to answer it if you don't want to, since it might be a bit too … personal"** the speedster questioned

 **"My least favorite type of question. But since it's you … go ahead"** she replied

 **"Why do you not want to go down in the accelerator ring?"** Barry asked quite bluntly and she made a surprised face that he managed to be so spot on regarding what she was thinking about

 **"After I woke up … I saw the footage of what happened that night. I saw Ronnie go down with Cisco in the accelerator ring to try to stop the explosion. I… don't want to go see the place where he died. I don't think I could take it"** she explained

 **"Tell me. What was he like?"** Barry asked

 **"Ronnie was the best and the worst brother I could have asked for. He was funny, supportive and a workaholic. You think I spent a lot of time helping build the Particle Accelerator. You would be very wrong. He was the structural engineer. He always laughed that he was more like a glorified plumber, but still. He was not supposed to be there that night. Nevertheless, I had to leave because you called me in with that impossible piece of evidence you found so Dr. Wells called him. He stayed to help with the inauguration, while I was down with you at the CCPD"** She continued **"You know me, I can be … a bit guarded "**

 **"You mean Fort Knox on a stormy day with razor wire and electrified fences, complete with demon traps, salt lines and a pretty force field on top? Yeah I know, although guarded would probably the understatement of the century"** Barry started to laugh, which made her smile. She did realize that guarded was an understatement, but she had no clue he could read her that well, she had an idea before when he asked her about the accelerator ring, but now she got an ever better picture.

 **"Barry Allen, You watch too much Netflix"** she gave him a genuine smile and stopped a bout of laughter before continuing **"Like I said, guarded. I always felt safe around Ronnie, he could make me laugh. He supported me and helped me with my problems, which were not few. My life was anything but rosy you could say"** She sighed as the analyzer finished its cycle and a sheet of paper rolled out of it **"There is no sign of poison in the tissue sample we have. However, there is something strange. The sample has TWO different DNA strands"**

 **"How can that be? In any sort of sample from anyone there is only one DNA strand unless you might find some Viral DNA like from a retrovirus, but that doesn't even come close to finding two particular sets of distinctly different genetic information"** Barry looked at her completely stumped

 **"Maybe the gas evaporated, in which case we will need a new sample"** she said after a bit of thought.

 **"Cait, what if … the metahuman we're chasing doesn't control gas. What if he can transform into it. It would make sense as to why we didn't find any gas, but stray DNA. Some of his cells rematerialized after the target was dead and they were left there as residue"** Barry concluded.

 **"It would make the most sense given the evidence that we have. That might be a real problem when we need to catch him"** Caitlin realized

They sat in silence as they processed this new information before they could hear the police radio in the back of Barry's Lab. **"All units to the mall, in full gear for a Toxic Gas Attack"**

 **"Let's go"** Barry spoke. Caitlin looked at him for a few seconds having a bit of déjà vu, then she nodded and they both sped toward STAR labs for their suits, then as fast as they could toward the mall.

When they got there, they didn't bother to stop for the police or anything. In their slowed time scape, Caitlin was checking on the victim that was sprawled all over the floor before concluding she was poisoned and was very much dead. Barry noticed some gas moving at a very slow speed out the back door. He pointed it to Caitlin and they both sped over to find a bald guy who had just reformed back from the mist.

 **"Hey, stop right there! Why did you kill that woman?"** Barry yelled toward him

 **"She deserved to die, there is one more on my list. Do not make me add you to it"** he spoke with a dark look on his face. Barry sped toward him but as he tried to punch him, the man turned back to mist. He passed straight through, the metahuman was now trying to kill him by encasing him in a globe of poison gas. Caitlin started to freeze the vapor limiting its movement. Before she could complete her goal, the man reformed and ran leaving a wheezing and coughing Barry on the floor.

 **"We got our sample, get me back to STAR"** Barry said with a raspy voice, having visible difficulty breathing. Not minding the metahuman that was escaping, Caitlin picked him up and ran all the way to STAR depositing him on a table in the medical area of the Cortex.

 **"Take a lung biopsy, Cait. The gas should still be here"** He whispered wheezing

 **"Cisco, get me the large syringe from the med bay"** she yelled. In under a minute Cisco was back **"I cannot give you any anesthetic, you do know that. Your metabolism will burn right through it"** she said

 **"I know. Don't worry. I heal fast. Do it, Cait. I don't want to have to get another sample, or worse, having you get one"** He tried to make her feel better even if he was literally being burned from the inside out now, because of the poison that continually damaged his lung cells. She immediately realized that he wanted to do this so she wouldn't have to in the future and gave him a weak smile, his pain was still something that she did not want to see.

 **"You won't probably even feel the needle"** Cisco tried to lighten up the mood

 **"Oh, he will feel it all right. Hang on, Barry. This is going to hurt"** Caitlin stabbed him with the syringe. The pain was much more than he would have been able to handle in his weakened state. Barry blacked out as Caitlin got the biopsy and took it to Wells to analyze.

Night came and Barry still did not wake up. They managed to get Glucose IV's into him to speed up his recovery and his lung cells were constantly regenerating and driving out the foreign DNA from the gas. As well and Cisco worked away in their respective Labs, Caitlin pulled up a chair near Barry and started to read. It felt natural for her to stay by his side when he was sick. She didn't know if it was because she felt a sense of debt toward him or because she was worried, but she did it anyway, like it was instinctive.

 ** _"I wonder how this works"_** she asked herself remembering the way Barry managed to enter her coma and keep her company **" _He did say something about physical contact so this should do"_** She took his hand in hers and slowly drifted asleep. She opened her eyes and was in a place she recognized. **" _He was right. This is indeed the way to get here"_** She smiled to herself and began looking for Barry. She saw him swimming in the lake and she approached the pontoon.

 ** _"Hey, you"_** She greeted him with a smile

 ** _"Hey, Cait. How are you here?"_** He put some thought into it then answered his own question **" _I'm guessing it was night and you stayed behind to take care of me while I healed from the gas"_**

 ** _"Yep. I remembered what you said about physical contact. So I took your hand and fell asleep and here I am"_** she replied smiling

 ** _"This is amazing. I always thought we could share the dreamscape because you were in a coma. However, since you say I'm just sleeping and healing, it means as long as we have a physical connection we can always come here. That. Is. AWESOME."_** He beamed toward her and she could see the carefree smile **_"Want to join me?"_** he smiled and motioned toward the lake.

 ** _"Not now, maybe some other time"_** she replied, but took her time looking at his slim fit body coming out of the water. The way his muscles were chiseled and the not so broad back that inspired the leanness of a runner or a swimmer not a powerhouse. She found herself looking at him way more than she would want. Whatever she tried to do her eyes stayed on him while he dried off.

 ** _"Beautiful"_** she muttered, but to her own dismay the dreamscape made heard what she had thought.

 ** _"Who, me?"_** Barry turned to find Caitlin hiding her eyes from his looking over to the lake

 ** _"No ... Not you. I was looking at the landscape. The landscape is beautiful. Yep. The landscape is what I was talking about "_ **she babbled. Then all of a sudden she stopped. **" _Barry, I don't remember there being a part of frozen forest in this place. Ever since we came here, the only frozen parts were the peaks around the lake. Why is half the forest behind the cottage covered in snow?"_**

 ** _"I sincerely do not know. I haven't been here since the last night we were here together. This is a shared space, as far as I can wrap my head around it. It can only exist when we are both in it. I have not seen this place since then. But you are correct, last time we were here there wasn't any ice or snow in any part of the forest"_** Barry answered her.

 ** _"I wonder if we can come out of this place whenever we want now_ "** she asked looking at him

 ** _"Considering we are both conscious at this time, we should be able to produce a door that will take us out of here. Why? Is there any reason we should wake up?"_** the speedster asked

 ** _"I don't know, but it's like I feel we have spent too much time in here. It must be morning by now"_** she replied

 ** _"Cait, time doesn't flow in this place. On the other hand, not at least the idea of time we have in the outside world. Remember that time when we spend what seemed like weeks in here and it was just one night?"_** he mentioned as she remembered.

 ** _"This is a place in our minds and they can work at a very high speed. Maybe the increased perception of time in here is because of that"_** she thought it over before answering.

 ** _"The only downside to it is that apparently we can only remember bits and pieces of what we discuss here. That would make sense considering this is a dream. For both of us"_** The speedster replied.

They spent some time going around the place together. The cabin, they entered the forest, at least the part that was not frozen. They were dressed for the climate that was near the lake. It was too cold for the frozen wasteland beyond, but they decided to adventure in that part of the forest anyway. What hit Barry as strange was the fact that he could not change the forest back not matter how hard he tried. It was as if something was keeping that part of the forest as it was. They explored right up until Barry tripped taking Caitlin with him. While they fell, he moved in the air making sure that she fell on him and was not hurt. He had hit a tree, but now they were both under it as a rumble came from above their heads and buried them in snow.

They both woke up gasping for air back in the Cortex. The sun was already shining through the top of the building as they separated hands.

 **"Good Morning, Cait"**

 **"Good Morning, Barry"**

 **"Hello you two. It's about time you woke up"** Cisco came in with two cups of coffee.

 **"What time is it, Cisco?"** she asked

 **"A bit over 11 in the morning. You both had a good night sleep?"** he smiled, but the grin in the back of his mind started showing on his face.

 **"Really, Cisco?"** Barry figured out what he was grinning about.

 **"I'm glad you`re ok, Barry. I would have been worried if the cells in your lungs didn't regenerate as fast as they did"** Caitlin told him

 **"I feel like that one time in my youth where I smoked a cigarette"** Caitlin gave him a puzzled look **"Yes, teen me lived for danger"** he smiled at her.

 **"This isn't funny. You could have died"** Caitlin blurted and Barry could feel the annoyance in her voice.

 **"But I didn't. Next time we have a poison Meta that we can't identify or classify from a damaged piece of evidence, I'll let you bring a fresh sample. How about that?"** it was clear on his face that his sarcasm was more for humor than actually trying to annoy her

 **"Shut up"** she smiled. Even as worried as she was for him, his goofy smile could always make her lighten up, even though he might have died and she worried her pretty little head off, there he was, making her day better

 **"Going to take a shower and change. I'll be back"** Caitlin told him as she sped out of the Cortex. Barry managed to get up and eat some of the donuts that Cisco brought with his coffee.

After about an hour Barry went to look for Caitlin. He went home as well, changed clothes and took a shower. His speedy metabolism made him sweat profusely while eliminating the poison from his system. He found her in the treadmill room just sitting there thinking.

 **"Hey, you ok?"** he asked as he sat near her on the treadmill as her sight was fixed on a point in the room

 **"Dr. Wells asked me to go to the accelerator ring to give an opinion of the new containment cells that he and Cisco retrofitted. They are just a base, they will have to be customized for each Meta and their specific power, but they managed to make one for The Mist"** she explained

 **"The, what now?"** Barry looked at her crooked

 **"The Mist. That's what Cisco is calling this metahuman"**

 **"Oh, boy"** Barry almost face palmed at the weird names Cisco was producing **"At least he didn't call him the fart"** Caitlin looked at him strangely **"What? He turns into toxic gas, the fart would be much more accurate than the Mist"** She looked at him and started to chuckle, but then the dark cloud that was looming over her returned.

 **"I told you I haven't been down there. I don't want to go down there to see where he died. I'm afraid it will rip me apart"** she continued

 **"How about if I go with you?"** Barry offered off the top of his head. **"It's easier to face your fears with someone to help you through them. Or just to know you are not alone"**

Her eyes went wide looking at the person next to her. Why would he offer something like that, she had no idea. She had started to know Barry in the short while since they began to work together and from their extensive talks in the dreamscape while she was in her coma, she knew that he would do almost anything to help a friend. Even though she wasn't feeling ready, she accepted as they both sped down to the accelerator ring. Barry left Caitlin to enter first then came behind her putting a stern hand on her shoulder, letting her know he was there with her.

 **"He managed to get the accelerator ring isolated so that the explosion would go up not laterally. He saved everyone in a 10 mile radius of STAR from being incinerated or even worse depending on how badly they would have been exposed to the radiation"** Her eyes started to water as she was saying this **"He was a hero and nobody will know about it"**

 **"I know. You do too. Cisco as well"** Barry stepped near her removing his hand from her shoulder **"Your brother saved a lot of lives that day"**

 **"I know he did, but I didn't want him to die to be a hero. I wanted my brother"** she started to cry almost falling on her knees before Barry hugged her to keep her steady

 **"Either way, he was dead, Cait. The explosion would have gone laterally and killed everyone including him. Your brother was a brave man. Because of him, Cisco, Wells and a whole lot of other people are alive. Remember his bravery"** she continued to cry on his shoulder as he continued **"I know how it feels to lose a family member. It's painful, and the pain in some days feels like it's even worse than the day they died. Nevertheless, pain is a part of life and at least me and Cisco; Dr. Wells too, will remember Ronnie for what he was. A person that put his life on the line to save everyone. Including you and me"** she looked at him with her eyes slightly red not understanding what he wanted to say **"The precinct is in the kill zone, Cait. If Ronnie wouldn't have done what he did, we would have probably been dead before we could have been struck by lightning"** She got herself up, but did not leave his embrace as she looked at him.

 **"You are right, It somehow slipped my mind that the precinct is indeed in the kill zone. He saved you and me as well"** she nodded and through the tears a small smile appeared. **"Thank you for coming down here with me"**

 **"You are most welcome. Glad I could help"** he replied not realizing they were still hugging rather closely. They realized that the moment a voice sounded through the intercom.

 **"If you two are done with *ahem* the close hugging. I need you to both get back to the cortex. We have managed to figure out what the gas is"** The two realized what Cisco was saying and immediately separated even if they were still holding hands, they sped back up to the Cortex where Harrison Wells and Cisco were working.

 **"We managed to create a 3D model of the gas that you so graciously managed to get us yesterday"** Wells talked as he pointed to the screen **"It's hydrogen cyanide, but that's not the most interesting part. It's mixed in with a sedative. Also, Joe called. The person that died in the mall. She was a judge, we're looking to cross reference all her ex cases with the Darbinian Crime family maybe we can get a match"** Barry and Caitlin looked at the chemical makeup of the Sedative.

 **"Barry, I know that sedative from somewhere. Isn't it used to …"** she didn't manage to finish her sentence

 **"Yes, Cait"** He was already back at the console searching for something **"that particular sedative is given to death row inmates before they are put in the Gas chamber and breathe in hydrogen cyanide"**

 **"You`re looking for people who were executed the night of the explosion, aren't you?"** she looked at him

 **"Indeed, I am"**

 **"Good. While you do that, I'm going to try to concoct a counter agent for the poison"** she sped to the med bay coming back a few minutes later with a red compound in an injector. **"This should help with the gas"** she said to the two men that literally had their mouths gaping at how fast she worked **"Super speed works in all avenues of life"** she smiled

 **"Got him"** Barry put up a picture on screen, which they both recognized instantly **"His name was Kyle Nimbus. A paid hitman for the Darbinian Crime Family. Until they turned on him and he got the death penalty for his crimes"**

 **"Yep, that's him"** Caitlin confirmed. **"Which explains why we didn't find him the first time we ran the DNA back at the CCPD. The DNA database only holds DNA profiles for the living. A dead person would have been erased, considering the execution is marked as _Successful_ "** she pointed at the large screen.

 **"Very good, Dr. Snow"** Barry gave her a smile.

 **"Ok, now we just need to find the connection"** Wells spoke as Cisco was already looking through the data that the CCPD sent over curtesy of Joe.

 **"I think I just did"** Cisco pulled up some files **"When the crime family turned on Nimbus, the judge that was killed was the one that found him guilty and sentenced him to the gas chamber"**

 **"He's taking revenge on the people that killed him"** Barry and Caitlin said at the same time, prompting Cisco to give them a glare. They continued however asking the same thing **"Who was the original arresting officer?"**

Cisco scoured the files until a familiar face showed up. **"Damn"** could be heard from every person in the room except Wells. The arresting officer was Detective Joe West, but after a few tries Barry saw that he was not answering his phone. After calling Iris and then ending up calling Eddie, they found out he went to Iron Heights.

 **"You need me to tell you how to break into the maximum Security Prison?"** Cisco started to look up floor plans as Barry and Caitlin ran toward the location.

 **"No, Cisco. I've been planning a break in at that prison for 10 years. I know the layout inside and out. I'll get to Joe in time, I already have memorized all the plans and I know the shortest route. Thank you though"** That made Caitlin smile looking at him. **" _The hero that planned a prison break for 10 years to save his father and even when he got powers, he was too good to do it. You keep surprising me, Barry Allen"_**

Unknown to them, Joe went to Iron Heights to apologize to Henry for not believing him all these years and to tell him that he is reopening Nora Allen's murder case. Henry was cold, he knew that Joe never believed him, but he was grateful that he believed in his son. Before the visit was over however the guard fell down covered by a cloud of green mist. As he started to convulse on the floor, the mist went straight for Joe. On the other side of the glass, Henry could see two masked characters appearing nearly instantly after the green cloud had left the room.

 **"Let's hope this works"** Caitlin whispered while injecting Joe with the antidote. Barry started vibrating his face as he looked at his father.

 **"Nice one, Frost"** he whispered seeing Joe beginning to calm down and breathe regularly. **"I've already called the paramedics. Let's go get that guy"** Then they both disappeared in a trail of lightning.

Henry Allen stood there looking at Joe and at the guard; the shock on his face only disappeared after the two disappeared and a guard came in and took him to his cell.

 **"So how do we do this, Frost"** the Flash asked his partner **"or do we keep running so we don't get poisoned"**

 **"Can you keep him busy?"** she whispered. **"I want to try something, but I need a bit of time to prepare"**

 **"You got it. Hey, gassy, this way"** he called out as he started to run randomly taking turns while the gas followed him. A few hundred meters behind them, Caitlin put her hands on the pavement and concentrated. Her hair started to turn white because of the amount of energy she was putting into this.

 **"Barry, I'm ready. Get him to me"** she said to him via the comms in the suits. He heard her and made a complete 180 while running straight at her with the gas on his tail.

 **"Incoming"** he yelled while running past her skidding to a halt after a few meters. The mist had almost reached Caitlin, but before anything happened a column of ice rose from the ground freezing the metahuman in his gas form, stopping him in his tracks

 **"Whoa"** Barry whistled at her. **"That's what I call an ice prison and the cold should keep him from reforming "**

 **"That wasn't actually my intention. As you know, gas is the least stable form of matter. I thought if I could capture him in his mist state and keep him like that for a minute, the energy required will make him pass out and reform into a human. Now get ready, I'm going to drop the column in a bit"** she said. Barry found out that he trusted her more than he thought, having no problem whatsoever with her dropping the large ice prison.

 **"Ready. Go for it"** he replied while getting in position to get her out of harm's way and run if the meta was still conscious, but his worries were unfounded. She was right. The moment the column dissipated the mist reformed into a barely breathing human that fell on the pavement unconscious.

 **"You totally Frosted his world"** Barry tried to pull a corny joke. Caitlin scoffed. **"Ok, ok, how about, he felt a chill in his spine?"** she didn't agree with that either, she just sat down visibly tired.

 **"That takes a lot of energy"** she admitted. Before she could finish her sentence, the meta and Barry were gone. Only for him to be back several seconds later.

 **"Come on, let's return to STAR"** Barry didn't even wait for an agreement or anything. He just picked up Caitlin and flashed back into the cortex putting her gently on a sofa so she could rest.

 **"Thanks. I could have ran back myself, but I didn't have the energy to keep up with you"** she admitted.

 **"I kind of figured that from the way you were panting. I have just the thing to get you your energy back, Cait"** He ran out and came back with 10 pizzas, 6 big belly burgers, 2 coffees and 4 boxes of donuts **" Dinner's on me"** he smiled as he saw her face light up at all the food he had brought back. **"Good job out there, Frost"** Barry congratulated his partner

 **"You weren't so bad yourself, Flash"** Caitlin replied. They looked at each other and started laughing as they began to attack the mountain of food that was in front of them.


	8. Nerd

That morning Barry thought he should wake up earlier than usual. He had many cases that were starting to clog up his desk at the precinct. Even with his super speed, it would have taken him the better part of a few hours to clear them all. Before he finished his morning routine at super speed to be able to leave, his phone rang.

 **"Good morning, Barry. I'm going out for a run"** he smiled hearing her voice.

 **"Good morning, Cait. I have one of the spare bracers here. I'll use them to monitor your vitals and let Cisco know if something is up. If you need any sort of backup I have a spare communicator with me and I'll be there in a … flash"** he replied chuckling

 **"Oh. You aren't coming with me"** her voice was a bit disappointed.

 **"I wish I could, there is nothing more I enjoy in the morning than running with you, but there are a lot of cases that need their evidence processed. I'm quite behind in some places and I would like that Singh doesn't fire me, ya know? I love my job"** she could hear the annoyance in his voice when mentioning the captain. She knew he had fits of rage sometimes, with good reason sadly, since Barry was always late for work or out saving the city with her.

 **"Then I have a better Idea. I'll come with you and help. Then we can go out running together"** Caitlin offered her partner

 **"Are you sure you want to spend your morning helping me with work rather than running?"** Even if he was asking that question, the tone in Barry's voice betrayed him entirely. He loved when they spent time together, doing even menial things.

 **"There's no other place I'd rather be. Besides… Running is more enjoyable if there are two of us"** she smiled to herself realizing that what she said was actually true. There was no place she's rather be, than with him.

 **"All right. Meet you at the precinct in 50?"**

 **"I was going to say more like in 30, but 50 is fine"** She closed the call, went back in the house and put on different clothes and sped over to the precinct. **" _I really need to ask Cisco to make me some soles for my shoes that don't start smoking from a 30 second run"_** she muttered rather annoyed. 20 seconds later Barry showed up holding two coffee cups.

 **"When you said 30 I was sure you weren't thinking about passing through Jitters to get coffee. So I thought I should get one for both of us"**

 **"You were right, I totally forgot my morning coffee"** she smiled widely as he handed her cup. **"Thank you. So, how can you be the fastest man alive and be behind on your cases?"** she enquired sheepishly while sipping her coffee as they were entering the precinct.

 **"Well, you know. Sometimes there is something much more important to take care of, rather than be at the CCPD. I do love my job thought, that's why I don't want to lose it"** Barry commented not expecting someone else to hear.

 **"Then you have better get rid of your backlog, Mr. Allen. I hear you have quite a long one at that"** Captain Singh was in front of them.

 **"Morning, Captain. I know. I'm getting started on that right now. I even brought help. You'll have everything taken care of by the end of the day, sir."** He replied

 **"And this would be the help?"** he pointed toward Caitlin

 **"Dr. Caitlin Snow"** she extended an arm **"I'm Barry's personal physician and I would be the help, yes"** she responded

 **"Mr. Allen, you know that you aren't allowed to bring random people in the building, right?"** Caitlin felt a bit offended at this, only to remember that she wasn't actually part of the police force, even though she had CSI knowledge.

 **"Dr. Snow is an MD. A geneticist and also a CSI"** Barry explained, while Singh looked quite surprised **"She is currently working at STAR Labs and is one of the persons that made sure I woke up from my coma, so she is anything but a random person, Captain"** Caitlin looked at him and smiled. It was refreshing to see someone stick up for her, usually that was Ronnie, but ever since her father died, nobody else did that.

 **"Oh. I see. Then I'm glad you decided to lend us your time and expertise, Dr. Snow. Maybe now Barry will actually manage to be on time with the evidence we send him"** Singh smiled toward her shaking her hand as he left for his office. This surprised Barry. It was totally out of character for Singh to accept someone so openly and so fast. Maybe he just needed the evidence cleared, who knows.

 **"Did you see the blog Iris is writing?"** she suddenly changed subject as they were going up toward his lab.

 **"Yeah. I wish we could actually go talk to her and tell her not to call us "the streak". It's, I don't know, It just sounds weird to me, I think I made that pretty obvious at least one time before"** Barry replied.

 **"So … why don't we?"** Caitlin asked **"We can … set up a meeting with her "incognito" and give her at least the names we use"**

 **"Well we could, but I would much rather she stop. We have no idea who might actually try to get her to see where she gets her information. After all, the entire internet is full of stalkers and weirdos"** He continued while they both went in his lab only to find someone already there. Felicity Smoak was a moderately tall woman with blond hair whipped up in a ponytail and with nerdy glasses. She was wearing a pink dress with a white blazer and heels that would actually bring her closer to Barry's height.

 **"He is right you know. The internet is full of weirdoes. Don't forget about nerd rage …. Lots of nerd rage. Hi. I'm Felicity Smoak"** she extended a hand toward Caitlin

 **"Caitlin Snow"** she shook the blonde's hand

 **"Barry Allen"** the CSI gave a dopey grin to both women then continued **"But you already knew that"** Felicity and Caitlin both looked at him and cracked a smile at his antics. Caitlin could see something in Felicity's eyes that made her wonder just how close was the blonde to Barry, as much as she never noticed these kind of things before, right now something dawned on her, she was hyper aware of things when it came to him, especially when another woman was around. That in itself made her think that something had changed in her day-to-day life.

 **"I should thank you for helping with … stuff while I was in a coma, Felicity"** Caitlin turned to thank her

 **"No problem. I knew Barry was too much of a good guy to actually bathe you himself, besides, he still doesn't know how to behave around naked girls"** Felicity started to laugh

 **"How would you know how I behave around naked girls, Felicity? Leaving that aside, what are you doing here?"** Barry was surprised to see his blonde friend.

 **"Well, I knew you were hit by lightning, but with all the problems in Starling City I couldn't manage to come visit so often. So, when I had a bit of free time, I took it upon myself to resolve that problem. But what about you … no calls, no texts, no emails, no … Racing over"** She smiled

 **"Wait, what? You know?"** Barry asked surprised. Caitlin figured this discussion would better off not being heard by anyone on the outside, so she went and closed the door.

 **"Well, yeah. Oliver forgot to turn off his com that night when you were talking to him on the roof"** She smiled widely while Caitlin fidgeted. **"Can I see it?"** instantly blushing at what she said, prompting a smile from her **"And by It, I mean your speed. Not that I would be referring to something else. Totally talking about your speed, nothing else"** She rambled. Barry was used to Felicity's rambling, but the way the blonde was trying to figure out how to not embarrass herself, Caitlin started to laugh.

 **"I do have something to ask of you and I'm behind on cases so Caitlin and I need to finish these while we're here. You're welcome to stay while we do so, after which we can go do… other stuff"** Barry told the blonde

 **"Sure, Barry. What can I do?"** she asked almost instantly

 **"Can you hack Caitlin a CSI license and an MD license for me? I would like to not need to explain to Captain Singh every time I need Caitlin to help that she is a CSI"** Barry explained to his friend.

 **"Wait, since… when are you an MD?"** Felicity was surprised at his request.

 **"We'll explain that later. Can you do it?"** the speedster asked her

 **"Of course I can. I just need a place for Caitlin to have worked as a CSI before"** Felicity asked looking at the other woman in the room

 **"Well, I initially came here from Coast City to work at STAR. So … maybe Coast City PD would be a good place"** Caitlin offered a possible starting point

 **"On it"** The blond woman replied while she took out her laptop **"It should take me about half an hour. I do need to fabricate cases you have worked on before. Also, Barry I'm going to get you a medical license from Coast City as well. I have someone there that can verify that information if needed"**

 **"Thank you. Cait, we should get to work while Felicity does her thing"** Barry spoke

 **"Mind getting me my boots from the lab? I would rather not smoke out these shoes"** she smiled at him in a way that Felicity picked up as being more than she was letting on

 **"Ok, back in a second"** Said Barry as he flashed out of the lab leaving Felicity with her hair all ruffled and with a stack of papers flying through the room. Her face was priceless; her fallen jaw was still there when Barry returned with a pair of blue boots and a pair of red boots for himself. They both put on their special attire, also leaving their shoes at arm's length. It would be weird if someone came in and they were wearing their superhero boots.

 **"What's with those?"** Felicity asked as the two changed instantly

 **"Friction proof material. You have no idea how many heels I ruined in just a few days running through the city without these on"** Caitlin sounded annoyed

 **"The heat produced by the way we move is usually transferred to the part that is most on the ground. As you might have guessed those are our feet. The faster we move the more friction, the more the temperature rises. Enough heat to even melt them if we move fast enough"** Barry completed the explanation as Felicity stood there with eyes like saucers.

 **"Shall we, Mr. Allen?"** Caitlin smiled

 **"We shall, Dr. Snow"** Barry replied giving her a small bow.

Felicity was stunned as to what she was seeing. The two were zipping around the place with trails of lightning after them from station to station. She saw Caitlin go through a rather thick folder from the police in 2 seconds flat then she went back to the DNA table to test some blood that had been collected. On the other side of the room Barry was acting as if he was a centrifuge, using his hand to process another set of evidence he had picked up from another very thick folder. She thought that he would zip through the folder as fast as Caitlin did earlier but to her surprise his reading was even faster, all she could see was him opening the folder, then almost instantly closing it again. A voice brought her out of her haze for a minute.

 **"Hey Cait. I need this vial frozen to extract the sample without damaging it. Some help please?"** Barry quipped as he was holding a test tube in the air above his head without actually looking at her. Caitlin turned and Felicity saw something that she could describe as a small ball of blue ice shooting out from the tip of her index finger, which she was now holding in the form of a gun. It hit the test tube instantly freezing it. Barry turned to her seeing her blow out the tip of her finger and gave her a grin. **"Thank you"** he replied

 **"You are welcome. Nevertheless, please, next time hold it farther away from your head. My aim still isn't that good when it comes to short hits and I would rather not freeze your brain, I don't know if you can regenerate that. Maybe we should have Cisco whip up something that could heat you up in the eventuality I miss, don't you think?"** she replied going back to her own work. Felicity could swear there was a smirk on her face.

 **"You won't miss, then you would have to run around saving the city alone and I know you don't like doing that alone"** the answer came accompanied by another smirk from him.

As they worked their cases, Felicity began her work creating the licenses Barry asked for. It didn't require much input from her as she already had procedures that would do all the breaching. Something she whipped up when helping Oliver. She continued to observe the two while she was creating the fake trails that would show Caitlin worked at Coast City PD. With the amount of speed that they were putting out, it would have seemed obvious for her that they might hit one another or run into one another, but that was not the case.

Whenever one would move the other would react with a speed that she could not process. At one point when Barry was moving toward the mass spectrometer his hand while he was turning was at Caitlin's head level. Felicity thought that she would get slapped out of Barry's negligence, but as his hand moved closer and closer to her, she gently ducked her head out of the way then came back to her original position.

 ** _"It's almost like they're dancing with one another, only not together"_** Felicity told herself watching the complete harmony the two were in as they worked. There was something else she noticed, something that was obvious if there were two people moving at normal speeds, but also for these two. They loved this, what was **"this"** she didn't know. Would it be the fact that they worked together, the rush they got when using their speed, the fact that they were probably showing off for her. That was an unknown, but she could notice that they were both smiling. Then the realization hit her, these two were almost never apart. She realized by the way they were talking that they everything they were doing, whether it be working at STAR, or processing evidence at the NCPD, or going out there and saving people and keeping the city safe, these two were always together. **_"I wish I could share my life with Oliver as these two have been doing, too bad I like a powerful broody man who is a bit paranoid and loves to keep secrets"_** the blonde through to herself letting out a heavy sigh.

 **"I'm done"** Felicity spoke after about an hour. She would have finished sooner but the dance of the lightning in front of her got her mesmerized on more than one occasion for several minutes at a time.

 **"We're done too"** Caitlin replied. Felicity then realized the large stack of folders that was on the table was gone. Instead of it, several smaller stacks with cases appeared. Each after some sort of type of categorization, which would be normal for police protocol. She knew Barry was a CSI, so for him that protocol would be second nature. She did not know Caitlin Snow, however. For her the doctor was a complete enigma. The most she knew was what Barry had told her the times she had come in to help with his problem and that was not enough information. They both got their boots off and put them in a bag.

 **"Going to take these back to STAR Labs. Cait, can you put the folders at the entrance in their usual order. I'll go tell the detectives that they can drop by and pick them up whenever they feel like it"** Barry told his partner

 **"Ok, but I'm doing it on normal speed. You have my boots"** she replied as she moved the stack of files from one place to another and in a second, the two women were left alone in the lab.

 **"So… how did you two meet?"** Felicity blurted. Caitlin considered in her mind about what she was going to answer. She didn't feel like answering to that question, the mere premise was a bit annoying to her, but she did notice that Barry was comfortable talking to the blonde and even sharing what happened, including the superpowers. From that, she deemed that the woman in front of her could be trusted, making her back down for a bit and answer the question.

 **"Well, before the particle accelerator explosion there was a heist at STAR. I was tasked with helping Barry, Joe and Eddie figure out who was the culprit. I think that was it mainly"** she left out the fact that Barry woke up early from the coma and took care of her, because it would be obvious, considering the blonde came a few times and took care of her, as Barry had told her earlier.

 **"I see"** Before she could finish Barry was back.

 **"We should go back to STAR or maybe out for a run like you wanted this morning, Cait"** he suggested

 **"Well, Felicity does want to see our powers, so … I guess back at STAR?"** the answer came rather fast

 **"All right. Let's go"** Barry answered.

Felicity packed up her laptop as the trio walked toward STAR labs talking about what had happened the last few months. How it was to have powers and if and what they decided to do with them or how to use them. She wanted to know everything. It took them almost two hours to reach STAR. Felicity started to ask about anything and everything. The thirst that woman had for information surprised even Barry who had met her already.

 **"Really dude? Bringing strange people in here that could expose you?"** Cisco said with a tint of anger in his voice as they were entering the Cortex **"Who is this anyway? "**

 **"This is Felicity Smoak and she has been here before a couple of times. Only you weren't around. Don't worry Cisco, Felicity works for the Arrow, so she is good at keeping a secret"** Barry answered swiftly trying to put his friend's mind at ease.

 **"Which you apparently are not, Barry Allen. Thanks for telling everyone that"** Felicity hit his shoulder as she was giggling. Somehow, Caitlin was not entirely Ok with the way she was acting around Barry. It rather annoyed her, even if the sunny blonde's personality was really bubbly and kind.

 **"Wait, wait. So you work with the Arrow. Does that mean … wait you three know who he is?"** Cisco beamed. They all looked at him and shrugged a silent yes.

 **"That is AWESOME"** Cisco fanboyed all over the Cortex **"Maybe I'll get to meet him one day, I've been following what he has been up to in Starling City"**

 **"Cisco, can you make us something?"** Caitlin got him out of his fanboy state.

 **"What would that be?"** the engineer asked instantly

 **"Well, we can't be coming back here everyone we need to run to get our boots. Can you make something that can be applied to the soles of our shoes so that they don't end up smoking or disintegrating?"** she replied

 **"Hmm. You mean something like a solution that would harden them and make them friction resistant?"** Cisco looked around thinking. **"Yes, I think I can make something like that, but it will take some time. I need to produce some liquid tri polymer solution like your suits, then make it malleable enough while not losing its properties"**

 **"Whenever you can, Cisco. Just as long as I don't need to buy more shoes"** Caitlin replied to her best friend.

 **"Good day, Ms. Smoak"** Harrison Wells entered the room. **"Nice to see you here "The greeting prompted a surprised look from Felicity**

 **"Dr. Wells. The Dr. Wells. Wait, you know who I am?"**

 **"Just Harrison, Felicity. MIT graduate class of '09. Multiple awards at cyber security firms and conferences, and out of the way hacker. Currently working at Queen Consolidated. Yes, I know who you are. STAR Labs has always been keeping an eye out for talent"** he explained. **"To what do we owe the visit?"**

 **"I knew Caitlin was in a coma, but I couldn't visit that often because of … issues. So now, I dropped by to see what happened to her. Besides the … well running faster than sound thing which I had no idea until a little while ago"** the blonde woman replied smiling

 **"Well we do need to train so, how about we move this to the treadmill room?"** Barry and Caitlin already had their suits on which had some improvements that Cisco had been working on, because he was never completely satisfied with them before. His suit had a Red circle for an Emblem with a Yellow lightning bolt thought it. Hers had a white emblem with a Blue snowflake.

 **"A blue snowflake, Cisco? Really?"** she commented **"Couldn't you have come up with something cooler?"** Then she heard Barry laughing in the background and realized what she said.

 **"How can you make a snowflake _cooler_ , Cait?"**

 **"Don't make me freeze you, smartass"** Caitlin replied with a smirk.

 **"It's a work in progress"** Cisco responded while they headed toward the treadmill room, taking his place at the monitors with Dr. Wells while Caitlin was sitting near Felicity turning on the bracer's display and switching it to Barry's vitals as he began to run.

 **"What is that?"** she asked pointing at the device on her hand

 **"Cisco built these for Barry when…"** she stopped but decided to continue **"after he woke up and decided to stay on and take care of me. These were built to enable Barry to check on my vitals from wherever when needed. He kept an eye on me all that time"**

 **"Yes, I kind of already knew he woke up earlier"** Felicity grinned

 **"Of course you would since you took care of me. But he did not reveal to anyone except his close family that he was awake and continued to work to try to help me to wake up** " Felicity wasn't surprised. He had hid himself from the world for 6 months trying to get her to wake up. She had only come here a few times to help but she didn't have a good idea of how much time it actually took for her to wake up as well. Before saying anything else she looked at the readouts.

 **"That does strike me as the type of person that he would be"** Felicity smiled while looking at Caitlin

 **"Oh? What makes you say that?"** the question came quite fast.

 **"Back when we met, we had to … recruit him in order to help Oliver which had been poisoned. We shot him with a tranquilizer and he woke up in the middle of the Arrow cave. That wasn't even the start, he had a dying person on a table and he was asked to save that person. Most people would just turn tail and run, since everything looked so much like a kidnapping more than anything else. Him, however, you would see the wheels in his head turning and looking for solutions. It was surprising that even with the method we employed to get him back to the Arrow cave, he would help instantly. He did manage to save Oliver's life, which is something I will always be thankful for"** The blonde smiled toward Caitlin

 **"I see. So that is how you two met initially"** somewhere in the back of her mind she let out a sigh of relief. She did not know the circumstances of their first meeting and she had seen the glint in the blonde's eyes when she came back, almost like it was something there, but only in an incipient stage.

 **"Yes, that is how we met, however, the more I came to visit when you were in a coma, I started to see Barry change. He started to be more and more preoccupied with getting out of your slumber, then when he started to find ways to make your body adjust, you should have seen him, Caitlin. I don't think I've seen him that happy in a long time"** The words that came out of the blonde's mouth surprised Caitlin to no end. She had noticed some subtle changes in the 6 months that Barry kept her company in her head, but nothing to the effect that this woman was telling her.

 **"Felicity, what is it you actually do anyway at Queen Consolidated?"** Caitlin decided to try to find out more about the blonde

 **"I would be the tech support I guess. I worked in the IT department at the start until someone came to me with a bullet-ridden laptop to try to recover information from. One thing lead to another and I became the tech person in the Arrow team. Which is what I am doing now. Part time tech wizard by day, hacker extraordinaire and tech support by night"** she started to chuckle while she was saying that **"Wow. He is fast"** her eyes looked at the figure on the screen. _550 mph_ **.** Orange lightning was surrounding him as he ran. The light show was beautiful. **"But doesn't moving faster mean that he might actually age faster as well?"** she said worried

 **"Don't worry, Ms. Smoak. We still don't know everything about his or Dr. Snow's condition. I can assure you that they are in capable hands and we won't let anything happen to either of them. As far as we know, they have not reached their top speed yet which means they could go even faster"** Wells assured the blonde

 **"His vitals are fine"** Caitlin commented looking at her bracer as Barry got off the treadmill coming into the room.

 **"Your turn, Cait"** he smiled and Felicity saw the same bracer she had on his arm as he was fiddling with it switching the readouts from his vitals to Caitlin's. As she ran, Felicity was mesmerized by the beautiful silver blue lightning that enveloped her. Coming out of it she turned to Barry

 **"So, Barry. Playing dead for 6 months just to keep an eye out for a girl huh?"** she looked at him with an almost knowing face.

 **"Yeah. You already knew that, why ask about it now?"** He looked at her crooked

 **"I didn't really know that. You didn't tell me that you just somehow happen to forget to tell everyone else except your closest family and friends that you were out of your coma. I found that quite … interesting. Mind explaining how you're a doctor now, thought? That's a bit of a blur"** Felicity asked seeing him eye the gauntlet displaying vital data.

 **"You know I was hit by lightning. What you don't know is that Caitlin and I were touching while that hit. For some reason through the shock, I received Caitlin's knowledge and she received mine. I suspect you already realized I wouldn't have let her come help in the lab if she didn't know her stuff"** Barry explained to her

 **"Whoa…"** Felicity's jaw fell **"So, she has your CSI skills and you have … what? You get turned into a doctor like her?"**

 **"Not that simple. You might think Caitlin Snow is just an MD, a bio engineer and a geneticist. She knows far more than that, considering the amount of information I now have"** Felicity noted that he seemed really proud of Caitlin as he was talking **"I now know hematology, surgery and a few other things which she already knew. She is one smart woman, Felicity. I had no idea how smart until I actually got stuck with the impressive amount of information that she holds, it took me almost 4 months just to put everything in order in my head and that's saying something for someone whose thoughts move faster than his feet"**

 **"You like her, don't you?"** Felicity's question hit him like a sledgehammer in the face.

 **"Of course I do. She's a good friend and my partner"** Barry tried to deflect the question but failing miserably

 **"Barry. You know what I meant. That's not an answer"** Felicity hit him in the arm. **"When we talked back in Starling, I managed to figure out that you liked Iris. The woman you kept telling me about and you went in a dreaming state and had googly eyes every time you talked about her. However, this is different. I don't know how to explain it "**

 **"I have loved Iris for a long time. Then I realized that I need to move on. While I was in a coma she started seeing someone else. To be fair, I'm sick and tired playing the friend and listening to her talk about her boyfriends. With Cait, it's different. Felicity, she is my friend, I … really don't know if I want to lose my friend and my partner because of a wrong move at some point"** Barry sighed looking down at the bracer.

 **"Barry, I have seen first-hand what this life can do to people. Don't make it lonelier than it's supposed to be. I can see how proud you are of her, at least if you don't want to make a wrong move, let her know that as a first step. There's always that first step and after that, well, you can take it from there"** Felicity kissed him on the cheek, followed by a large thud. Caitlin was watching everything and she lost her concentration crashing into the wall of padding Cisco put up while they were testing their endurance. In the instant that you would need to blink, Barry was near her, assessing the damage.

 **"Hey, you all right, Cait? What happened?"**

 **"I lost my concentration for a second. I thought that I might be able to run without actually keeping the focus on the speed I have. Apparently, that did not seem to be true"** She cringed when trying to move Barry noticing her leg who had a bulge near the thigh.

 **"You really need to be more careful with that. I think you broke your leg. Let's go. I need to take an X-ray"** before she could say anything Barry picked her up and carried her straight to the med bay, putting her slowly on the bed. Felicity and Cisco followed. **"Yep, your leg is busted. I need to put it back in place. As always you know we can't use anesthetics on ourselves so … sorry in advance"** Caitlin put a hand on his shoulder

 **"Do it"** She winced. As Barry was setting her leg, Felicity was observing. She knew Barry Allen as a CSI, but seeing the ease and the speed he worked with as a doctor helping Caitlin, impressed her even more.

 **"Cisco, get one of those printed 3D casts in Storage. I had a few built for Caitlin's frame and a few for my own so we don't have to use Gypsum or other crap that can create muck around the lab"** the engineer nodded and ran toward storage

 **"You had casts printed if we ever broke our bones? Barry, for real?"** Caitlin asked him.

 **"What? With all the shoulder popping and the fact that if we fall at 800 mph a fracture is the least of our worries. I foresaw us breaking bones before you even woke up. I was sure that it would happen when I broke my arm at our first test. It's not like we would do it on purpose, but shit does happen and I like to be prepared"** Cisco came back with the cast looking a bit like a ghost. Barry gently put it on her leg letting her lie in bed.

 **"Nice work, Dr. Allen"** she rather made fun of him with the title, but he knew it was lighthearted fun so he didn't take it seriously. In fact, she was pretty impressed with the way he put her leg back. Nice clean professional work. Something she would expect of herself.

 **"Rest for a bit. If my arm break is anything to make a timeline by, you should be up and running in a couple of hours"** Barry replied

 **"Wait, you`re joking right?"** Felicity's jaw fell again. **"Healing from a break that nasty in a few hours?"**

 **"Yes. Apparently our speed gives us fast healing as well as regenerative abilities"** Barry replied to the dumbstruck blonde.

 **"Cisco, what's wrong with you?"** Wells asked seeing him white as the walls that were surrounding them.

 **"Dr. Wells, remember that cold gun we built to be used by Firefighters to quell flames?"** the engineer replied

 **"You mean the one that turned out to bring things down to absolute zero thus when extinguishing flames might actually freeze the people inside, I remember that gun"** Wells raised an eyebrow

 **"It's gone"** the answer came.

 **"WHAT?"** Wells yelled prompting the three that were in the med bay to stop their banter. **"How, when did it disappear?"** he asked. The engineer was fidgeting almost like trying to gather his thoughts **"Cisco, I am going to ask you one more time when it disappeared. You'd better have another answer besides I don't know"** Wells was visibly irritated as he approached the med bay with the engineer.

 **"What is he talking about?"** Caitlin asked

 **"Before the Particle Accelerator STAR labs was building stuff for general use. This cold gun was initially designed to help firefighters"** Cisco explained **"I know it was here 3 days ago"**

 **"Except it turned out to be a very effective weapon. A weapon that could freeze anybody and anything and probably one that could severely hurt you"** Wells continued **"The gun can produce absolute zero level temperatures that in theory would stop the excitation of your molecules severely limiting both your speeds. While Dr. Snow would probably only have her speed affected, not being physically hurt due to her powers, it could possibly kill you, Barry"**

 **"Why wouldn't it kill Caitlin though?"** Felicity asked off the top of her head looking at the person in the bed. Caitlin shrugged and threw an Ice dagger that embedded itself in the wall. **"You have ice powers too? That is SO COOL"** Felicity almost fell over from fanboying over what she saw. Then a cell rang in the cortex. It was Barry's.

 **"Barry, we need some help down at the art gallery. Leonard Snart is inside with something that can freeze. He already took out two of my people. I'm in the gallery already but I'm running out of places to hide"** Joe was on the other side of the line

 **"On my way"** Caitlin was trying to get out of her bed visibly wincing at the pain. She slipped almost falling. Felicity didn't even see the trail he left when he caught her in his arms and put her back on the bed **"You stay here, Cait. Your break hasn't healed yet by the face you're making. I'll be all right"**

 **"Be"** before she could finish her sentence he already flashed out of the cortex **"careful"** she sighed. Felicity could see the worry on her face, it was pretty obvious she cared what happened to her partner.

Leonard Snart was trapped. He knew that he could simply freeze the whole room as well as the people inside and get away, but he was a thief, not a murderer. He needed to come up with something that would give him an out. He aimed the gun at the statue that Joe was hiding behind in order to create an ice wall that would block his vision, just enough for him to get out with his prize.

When Barry reached the art gallery he saw that he was just in time. The sculpture that Joe was hiding behind was iced over and Snart was about to fire his gun. He ran to get Joe out of the way, but the beam hit him instead as he came to a halt on the floor shoving the detective out of the way.

 ** _"Great, now I have this guy to deal with too. This is either going to be very simple, or pretty messy"_** Snart thought to himself as he grabbed the jewel he was here for. On the other side of the room Barry tried to stand up. The place where the cold gun hit was hurting badly. It felt like it was burning. He tried to get up but it was as if the beam had slowed him as well. His reaction time was nowhere near where he would like it.

 ** _"I think I can finish it right here and now. The Flash is disabled, but he should be taken out. I think he will be a big thorn in the side for further endeavors if I let him live right here and now"_** He grabbed his gun and started walking toward the speedster that was trying his best to get off the ground. Barry saw Snart coming over to him about to discharge his gun. A shot could be heard hitting him in the shoulder.

 ** _"I didn't plan for this"_** Snart thought to himself **_"With this wound and with the Flash beginning to thaw, as well as that detective that shot me I think it's time that I get out of here. Another shot like that and I might spend the rest of my days in prison, or even worse, dead"_** The criminal considered his options grabbed the gun and what he wanted to steal and was gone in a matter of seconds, leaving a wounded Flash and a shocked Joe behind. Barry managed to stand and with a nod to Joe, he ran back to Star Labs, falling down in the Cortex.

 **"Get him on the other bed"** Caitlin ordered as Cisco and Felicity saw her grab two crutches and get up **"What happened to you?"** she asked as she was running tests to see how bad he had been affected.

 **"Snart had the cold gun. He was trying to shoot Joe with it. I managed to get him out, but in the process he managed to shoot me"** She could see the pain in his eyes.

 **"You have severe frostbite. Even the internal organs were affected, but you are healing. You just need a few hours and food and you should be all right"** she sighed. Cisco and Felicity were awed. She was moving stupidly fast even with the two crutches.

 **"That wasn't the problem. When he shot me, I felt like my speed was drained away. I tried to get out but I was very slow. For some reason I could only move at half the speed I usually run. That's why it took me so long to get back here"** he continued

 **"Yeah. The gun stops the excitation in the molecules effectively cutting their energy bringing them from an excited state to a standstill. You were lucky, Mr. Allen"** Wells commented.

 **"Snart got away. How are we going to find him anyway?"** Barry asked his team.

 **"We built the cold gun, it was constructed to receive updates from my tablet and when the update was done, I would receive a ping back with success or failure. We could use the city grid to track him if I send a fake update to the gun"** Cisco offered a plan.

 **"How long is that going to take?"** Barry asked.

 **"A few hours for me to write the update, then another hour for me to hack in the city grid"** he answered.

 **"Oh, I can hack the grid in less than a minute. I can even give you some of my tools to help in case you need something done fast later"** Felicity quipped as she sat down at her laptop cracking her knuckles and started typing like the keyboard was on fire **"And … done. Now all you need to do is finish the update and send it. The grid will track down the signal from your gun"** she took out her flash drive transferring some stuff to Cisco. **"These are what I use. I included a proprietary face recognition program that ties into the FBI, NSA and CIA databases as well as the national police database and DNA library"**

 **"Whoa… thanks"** Cisco sat there surprised at how good the blonde was at what she did

 **"No problem, but I have to be going back. The last train to Starling is in two hours and I still need to go to the hotel and grab my things. I would ask one of you to take me but … that's not an option with Barry frozen and Caitlin with a broken leg "She approached Caitlin and whispered in her ear "Take care of him. He might not show it, but he likes you and he is extremely proud of you as a partner. He's probably just too much of a dork to actually tell you that himself"** Leaving the doctor with a stunted look on her face, but managing to respond in the same whispered voice

 **"I will; thank you for telling me that"**

 **"Goodbye, everyone. If you need me, you know where to find me. Also Barry has my cell"** she waved as she was walking out of the cortex.

 **"Goodbye, Felicity. Don't be a stranger"** Caitlin replied

 **"Bye Felicity, come back whenever, you are welcomed here"** Barry managed to take a breath and speak through the pain. Cisco and Wells waved goodbye as well before she was gone.

Two hours later Cisco finished his **"fake"** update for the gun and the two speedsters were fully healed. He sent it over the wire and the gun responded with a ping near Central City station.

 **"Snart must be headed out of town now that he managed to steal what he wanted"** Cisco concluded

 **"Oh no. Felicity"** Barry and Caitlin said at the same time. They looked at each other and nodded and they were gone. Cisco was monitoring the pings he kept getting. Part of his fake update was making the gun think that it was constantly updating. The update made the weapon constantly send its location to the engineer, which was keeping a close eye on the trail.

 **"Guys, he boarded the train to Starling City"** Cisco announced through the com.

 **"Frost, find Felicity and get her out of this train. I'm going to try to talk to Snart. Peacefully"** the Flash told his partner.

 **"Flash, be careful and whatever you do, dodge that freeze blast ok?"** she said with worry in her eyes.

 **"I will. Now go!"** he went further and further into the train. Caitlin reached her target first. Taking Felicity in her arms and depositing her far away.

 **"Snart is on the train. Stay here. You'll be safe"** she told Felicity who nodded.

Almost at the head of the train, Barry encountered Snart, who seemed not impressed that the two speedsters had caught up with him. It was almost as if he was expecting it.

 **"Why would you take the train? You have nowhere to go now. Give yourself up"** Barry yelled at Snart

 **"Did you ever think that I took the train on purpose?"** he smiled shooting the cold gun at the floor through the train completely freezing the rails that broke under the train's weight. Before the train completely went off the rails he jumped off.

 **"Frost, you go at the end I'll go from the start, we need to get as many people out as we can"** Barry whispered to Caitlin noticing her next to him. She nodded and they started to get people out from the train, which was almost not moving due to the accelerated time scape their speed gave them.

Watching from outside Felicity had found herself again mesmerized by the beautiful dance of the two lightning trails as they were rushing around the train that was continuing to advance off the rails. She continued to notice people appearing at a safe distance from the accident as the two speedsters did their thing. Before the train had even fully stopped the people were all taken to safety, but Barry and Caitlin had stopped trying to catch their breaths. They were almost certain they went much faster than anything before, but they were happy because they got all the people out. None of them saw Captain Cold as Cisco dubbed the criminal standing behind them. He pulled the trigger and a ray of frost hit Barry.

 **"See, I always have a plan. I took the train so I could kill you"** Snart pointed the gun at Barry and fired.

 **"No. Not this time"** Caitlin put her hands in front of the beam stopping it completely. It was sapping her of her powers, she felt herself weakening, but did not want to give up and the gun was not affecting her nearly as badly as it would have frozen Barry by now. Snart didn't give up either ramping up the power thinking he could freeze her as well, but the more power he put into it, Caitlin stood up simply blocking the ray, her hair becoming completely white and her eyes turning into a steel blue. **"You are not going to hurt anyone here. You might have killed Flash, but that doesn't work with me. How about I show you what someone who actually has the power over ice can do"** She hissed throwing ice daggers at him with a hand. He could not dodge them all. Two of them hit him in the shoulders, while another grazed his leg. Caitlin kept advancing toward him continuing to throw ice daggers **"You are done. You are going to die here like the criminal that you are"** she growled but then she heard a voice, like a whisper.

 **"Frost, don't. We aren't killers"** She could hear Barry. **"We are supposed to be heroes, not vigilantes. We do not kill people "**

 **"But he was going to kill you"** she replied back with anger.

 **"All criminals will try to kill us. That does not mean we have to do the same"** She looked at the place where Snart was before, but he was gone, with the cold gun. She turned back toward him as he was barely standing up. She helped him walk over toward Felicity.

 **"Thanks, guys"** Felicity managed to speak after what happened. **"Nice style change, Frost"** She was going to use their superhero names because there were people around.

 **"Style change? Say what now?"** and she looked in the mirror Felicity provided **"Wow. That's … new"** She mumbled, her words stopped in her throat when she noticed the way Barry was looking at her.

 **"You look … hot, Frost"** he whispered in her ear, chuckling at the irony of it all. She thought she was blushing, but nothing showed over her cheeks.

 **"Stop it you two. People are looking"** Felicity smiled at them **"Seems that I need to find another train to Starling City, but probably not now, since the tracks are ... well pretty much destroyed"** Before she could finish Caitlin took all three of them flashed back to the Cortex.

 **"We're going to take you to Starling tonight. However, we need to get out energy back. Cait, Pizza? Or donuts? Or both"** Barry asked.

 **"All of them. She answered, but I'm going. You sit on the bed and defrost yourself "** In a flash she was gone and then returned with all of the above putting them on the table in the Cortex. **"Let's eat"** She approached Barry helping him get up and getting him to a chair.

 **"You really need to be more careful. If any Villain with a cold gun can inflict that much damage on you then don't let yourself get hit"** she said with a worried look on her face, but being relieved that he was fine.

 **"Next time a villain with a cold gun attacks us, you can take the hit. Maiden of Ice"** Barry smiled

 **"Hey, I know I'm cold , but not THAT cold. Maiden of Ice, I like that. But I like Frost better"** She smiled at him. Barry for the first time noticed how beautiful she was in this strange form she had taken. Her hair was silvery white, which contrasted beautifully with the blue on her suit and her eyes had the same color as the snowflake on her chest. **" _Ice blue is very catching on the beautiful Dr. Snow"_** He thought to himself and he could swear she heard him because she was smiling.

The two managed to return to STAR Labs after dropping Felicity off at a hotel, just in time for Cisco to welcome them with a grin.

 **"You two seem to have made quite an impression on the media"** He pointed to the television where there was a report about the train that they had been on as well as the multitude of people that survived the wreckage. The band below read **_"Train 627 had its own guardian angels. Two streaks saved the passengers from certain death as the train capsized"_**

 **"Guardian angels or not, Snart got away and now I look like this"** Caitlin looked in the mirror with a bit of dismay

 **"It's fine, we can catch him some other time. Now at least we know you can block his cold gun without getting hurt and that is big. Besides, I told you … you look hot"** Barry smiled toward the doctor, which was still looking in the mirror. The prospect of being stuck in this form was frightening for Caitlin, but at least Barry thought she looked beautiful. That brought a slight smile on her face while she was examining her new form.


	9. Changes

Early that morning Barry had gotten an alert from Joe. There had been a bank robbery, but it was a bit more than that. The person managed to leave with the money because everyone started fighting each other, including the guards that were supposed to keep an eye on the place. They managed to get a hold of the video from the internal cameras but they the man didn't appear in the system so they had nothing, a name or a location. Cisco put Felicity's face recognition to work, in case the man would show up anywhere in the city.

He was hanging out at the Lab as usual. Instead of taking Felicity back to Starling City as they initially planned she received a call from Oliver to stay put as himself and Diggle were coming there themselves. They have had string of gruesome murders going on over in Starling done by someone who had an affinity for boomerangs so they were coming to Central to track the person down.

Cisco was in the Cortex with him and Caitlin watching them work. She would have waited normally for her transformation to recede, but after the encounter with the cold gun she was permanently stuck with silver hair and steel blue eyes. It was rather obvious that she couldn't go outside like that. Seeing her worried, Barry proposed that they worked in the lab to find a way to reverse the transformation. If that turned out to be impossible then maybe some sort of way to mask it would have been good as well. Cisco was now watching the same thing Felicity had seen back in the crime lab.

Caitlin and Barry, who had prior agreed on which took what task to do, were zipping around the lab doing their respective tests. Caitlin freezing samples and helping Barry with his, moving around one another as they switched places and talked about what they found. It was beautiful. Cisco had never seen them work at super speed before and he was mesmerized. His phone rang and the symphony of colors stopped, Barry picking up.

 **"Hello, Arrow"** He remembered that Cisco had no clue who he was so he decided to not use his real name **"What's up?"**

 **"Why so formal, Barry?"** the voice sounded surprised.

 **"I'm with someone who doesn't know who you are. I would rather leave you the choice of telling him if needed"** Barry explained

 **"Ah. I see. Thank you for being so thoughtful. I might need your guys' help. I'm sending Felicity over with something that a supposed metahuman left behind on one of his attacks"** the archer stated bluntly

 **"Sure. We're all at the lab. Does Felicity have the evidence already?"** Barry asked

 **"Yes. I already gave it to her. She's here with me. We're outside the city at the abandoned Train Yard"** The Arrow replied

 **"We're coming to pick her up and maybe you can fill us in with the info you have"** Barry closed the call **"Cait, we need to go meet the Arrow and Felicity outside of town. They need help with something"**

 **"You know I can't get out like this Barry. I need to stay and find a way to reverse this transformation. It's not that I don't like how I look, but I can't go out like this in public"** she quipped back at him

 **"We'll need our costumes anyway"** He looked at her and mouthed in a low voice **"Besides, Frost, you look beautiful. Your eyes even match the suit for crying out loud"** He thought that she didn't hear him, but she did starting to blush, this time visibly over her white skin.

 **"Ok, ok, you convinced me, you charmer"** she gave him a bright smile. **"I do like the look, but I do have to be normal when out of that suit"**

 **"Don't worry, Cait. We'll figure something out. You know we will"** he gave her one of his patented smiles that made her feel like everything is right with the world. They both suited up and ran straight over to the abandoned train yard.

 **"It's good to know Big Belly Burger is always Big Belly Burger doesn't matter which city you are in"** Felicity smiled

 **"You mean, greasy and full of salt?"** Diggle smiled as he was munching on some fries.

 **"I thought those were the secret ingredients"** She looked up into the distance and saw two flashes of lightning coming toward them. Before she could warn Diggle, the two stopped in front of them, almost seeming like they appeared out of nowhere. Felicity was accustomed to them popping out of nowhere, but Diggle, well … he just spilled his fries everywhere.

 **"Wow. You`re … fast"** he managed to blurt out.

 **"Did you guys not tell him about us?"** Caitlin smiled

 **"Well, seeing is believing … or in this case, drooling"** Felicity laughed at Digg's shocked face. Oliver was his calm collected self as always, but he did crack a surprised look seeing Caitlin's change. Barry caught that and commented

 **"I told you. You look beautiful. See? Even Oliver agrees"** He smiled making her blush again. Oliver smirked not having to say anything and Felicity laughed at his blunt statement. Poor Diggle was still shocked holding now an empty container of fries.

 **"How can we help, Oliver?"** Caitlin decided to break the awkwardness. Both of them taking off their masks as they talked.

 **"There was a particular gruesome murder in Starling City a while back. Someone started killing people with Boomerangs and some evidence Felicity got from the crime scene had very high concentrations of iron oxide. While that is a common thing to find Central City Has way more of the required concentration than Starling and we already looked around that area, not really finding anything. So, we came here. I would like to find out if you can get me a name or a manufacturing company, or anything that might help to find this guy"** Oliver motioned toward the boomerang that was sticking out of Felicity's bag.

 **"Sure. We can take it to STAR and have Cisco analyze it"** Caitlin stated

 **"I would rather not come. There are enough people who know my secret already"** Barry could see him cringe a bit.

 **"That's fine. I can go. They already know who I am down at STAR"** Felicity interjected. She looked surprised when Caitlin and Barry started playing rock paper scissors and she saw Barry lose. **"What's that for?"** she asked.

 **"You don't think we're going to let you walk to STAR huh?"** they both smiled and before anyone could say anything Barry picked up Felicity and they were both gone, two lightning trails moving in the distance, while Oliver looked at them.

 **"You don't find that freaky?"** Digg finally managed to utter a few words. Oliver smirked at him.

 **"Some people would find an archer freaky in this day and age, John. It's all about perspective"**

When they reached STAR labs and Barry put Felicity down, Cisco was in the room. Before they could say anything, Felicity saw that her blouse was burning and while Caitlin was trying to put it out, the end result being that she had to take it off, remaining in her bra in the middle of the Cortex hugging her bag to cover herself.

 **"Hi, Felicity"** Cisco finally managed to stop staring. **"Nice … entrance"**

 **"I'm glad I didn't decide to go braless today"** she said visibly disturbed by what was happening

 **"Even if you didn't, it's not likely I'll forget this moment"** Cisco replied rather absentmindedly. Before he could finish his sentence, Felicity had a STAR lab t-shirt on her courtesy of Caitlin's quick thinking.

 **"So what brings you here, Felicity?"** Cisco finally managed to articulate his thoughts.

 **"We had a murder in Starling and I thought you could help me run some tests on the weapon that was used"** She explained showing Cisco the boomerang. He looked at it and took it from her hands.

 **"Wow, this is trippy. It's almost like it's …"** the engineer didn't manage to finish his sentence before the blonde cut him off.

 **"Vibrating. Yes, I know. That is something I noticed myself while examining it. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you more than that"** she continued

 **"This must be some sort of plastic combined with carbon fiber... I want to run some tests on this and I want to run them RIGHT NOW"** You could see the gleam in Cisco's eyes as he said that **"By the way, I did find out something about our meta. The officer that survived the carnage from the bank said before he lost control, he saw a flash of red"**

 **"If he saw a flash of red"** Barry started only for Caitlin to finish his sentence

 **"It means the Meta might be able to induce rage via the ocular nerve"**

 **"Do they know they are finishing each other's sentences?"** Felicity asked

 **"No idea. But they are cute when they do that and it's been happening more and more especially when they talk science, probably because they are drawing their conclusions from the same knowledge pool"** Cisco whispered to her so the two wouldn't hear. While they moved toward one of the stations that were in the Cortex in a separate part that Cisco had claimed for his own.

 **"Let's pick up where we were this morning with finding you something to camouflage your change then?"** Barry spoke.

 **"Yep. Same division of labor as this morning so we don't run into each other?"** she replied to him giving him a smirk.

 **"You're on. The one who finishes last buys the other lunch. If we finish at the same time, lunch is on me"** Barry threw her a smile and he already was zipping around the room. Caitlin smiled and she started running her own batch. The dance of lightning started again.

 **"Do they always do that?"** Felicity asked **"I saw them at the station when they were finishing Barry's cases. It was like they were dancing with one another"**

 **"I don't know if it's a regular thing, but if you saw them doing it before and I have seen them this morning, then I guess they are used to their speed enough to make this work. Also not bump into each other, imagine a bump at high speed between those two, that could turn really nasty"** The two of them took their eyes off the dancing lightning bolts and began running their own tests on the boomerang.

Half an hour later Joe and Wells entered the Cortex only to stop short of the entrance. They were greeted by the lightning dance that had mesmerized Felicity and Cisco before them. The two stood and watched as Barry and Caitlin were zipping around the room easily avoiding each other as they moved from station to station doing things, their lightning intermingling as the two speedsters moved so fast that it was hard to follow them. It was as if they knew every second where the other was and moved around, with something that at first sight might have looked like precognition. They became even more confused when a boomerang flew out of the mechanical area straight at Caitlin.

She was with her back at it, but instead of hitting her she moved her head out of the way, only for the boomerang to be caught by Barry who just raised his arm seeing Caitlin's movement. The four were shocked by this. The reaction times were unreal, Caitlin moved out of the way almost like she knew Barry would have caught it without much damage.

 **"Wow"** That was the only thing that came out of Felicity's mouth seeing their fluid movements.

 **"Whoa…Sorry, my bad"** Cisco said raising his hand. **"I had no idea it would actually fly that far when I tried to throw it. The way you caught it though, that was some next level stuff right there"** Barry looked at him and put the boomerang on his desk.

 **"Barry, can we talk to you?"** Joe asked after recovering from the shock of what he just saw.

 **"Cait, can you take over for me for a bit?"** he asked and she stopped a bit and nodded then began zipping around again **"Yes. Sure"**

 **"Not here. Come with us"** they went to the treadmill room **"We've heard you`re helping the Arrow"**

 **"Yeah… so?"** he asked rubbing the back of his head.

 **"We don't trust him"** Joe added

 **"I'm sorry ... what?"** Barry looked at the two rather confused.

 **"You heard us, Mr. Allen. We don't trust him"** Wells chimed in.

 **"How is that any concern of mine? I do trust him. You guys haven't even met him. All you know is that you hear from the media and TV. Those people will always portrays whoever they don't like in a bad light"** the speedster said visibly annoyed

 **"You are a light and bring hope to this City. The Arrow is just carrying out bloody vengeance. You might think he is a hero. But he isn't a hero that you should look up to"** Wells added

 **"I want him out of my city by tonight"** Joe said bluntly

 **"I do not control him. He is my friend and he will stay until I manage to give him all the help I can. What you want or not want in this case is something out of my control. By the way you are talking about him it's clear to me that you don't know him at all"** Barry stated quite clearly. Oliver, despite his problems, was his friend.

 **"Barry"** Joe tried to speak

 **"Look, Joe. When Dr. Wells told us that we were better off not playing the heroes and that we were just two ordinary people who were struck by lightning, it kind of blew a hole in the purpose Caitlin and I thought we wanted for ourselves. That night, we went to see the Arrow. His advice is what made us decide that we were going to do this with or without help. Yours or whoever else's. So before you say you don't trust him, how about you think about that. Without him, Flash and Frost might not exist now. So do me a favor, before you start judging someone by what you see on TV, or by your own preconceptions for that matter, meet them first and then give out free opinions and ultimatums, until that time, I would prefer that we end this discussion"** Barry was very clear and his tone was final. He walked out of the room going back in the Cortex to help Caitlin, leaving the two men surprised with the conviction he had in protecting his friend.

Returning back to the Cortex, Barry noticed that the strand of hair that he left on his workstation was not white anymore. He made a mental note about the vibrations of the boomerang and the fact that the hair was sitting in a modulated EM field. He went over to Caitlin.

 **"Hey, Cait. Mind if I take another strand?"** he whispered while running his fingers through her hair. Caitlin was trying furiously not to blush. The feeling of his hand in her hair was … electric, the sensation of heat going down her back was really throwing her off focus.

 **"Yea, sure, why do you need it?"** She cut a small strand out of her silver hair and gave it to him.

 **"I'll tell you in a moment. But I think I might have found something"** Barry went back to his workstation and put the strand under a microscope, putting the boomerang and the magnets to create the EM field and started to look through it. What he noticed was that the cells in the follicles in her hair were returning to normal and the coloration was dissipating. The EM field and the vibration made them lose the coloration, but still retaining their properties from before. The change was almost instantaneous, but in the dilated time scape Barry had enough time to observe the effects. **"Hey Cait. I definitely got something"** he motioned for her to come to him and pointed at the normal colored strand of hair on the bench.

 **"How did you do that?"** she asked

 **"You know how many of the earth's greatest discoveries are made by accident?"** He smiled pointing at the boomerang and the EM Field generator **"I just happened to put those together and … your hair turned normal"** She started to verify what he said, checked the data again. Even took the hair sample out of the combined fields and, wouldn't you know it, It turned white again.

 **"Oh, my god Barry, I could kiss you right now"** she said frantically with a large beautiful smile on her face. **"Do you know what this means?"**

 **"You can turn back to your normal, beautiful, not frosty self when you want to?"** he smiled and she gave him the biggest hug. She was so excited that somehow without knowing Barry managed to solve her greatest issue to date. The ruckus made Cisco come back into the cortex and see the two hugging.

 **"Get a room!"** he snorted, then he noticed the normal colored hair on the workbench **"Wait, what? Did you manage to reverse the effects?"** Cisco looked disbelieving at Barry and Caitlin

 **"It's just a cosmetic change, the power is still there. But this nerd did it by accident"** You could see the happiness in her eyes when she said that. Cisco ran over their numbers and after a few minutes spoke **"I'll build you something that will mimic the exact conditions of this experiment to try so see if it works on the bigger picture. Give me two hours"** he smiled and ran to his lab.

 **"Nerd, huh?"** Barry tried to sound annoyed **"The EM field idea was actually because of one of your tests which I saw the results of when you were running them"** he smiled.

 **"Shut up"** Caitlin quipped

 **"Barry?"** Felicity called him from the other room. **"Let's go to Jitters. Oliver wants to talk to you "**

 **"Now that you managed to find something to solve my bad hair day"** Caitlin smiled **"I'm going to stay here and maybe figure out a way to counteract the rage inducing effect of our robber metahuman"**

 **"You're hungry so I'll bring you the usual from Jitters when I come back, ok?"** Barry commented.

 **"How do you know I'm hungry?"** Caitlin asked

 **"Oh, that's simple. Because I am"** he smiled. **"Hold on"** he told Felicity while they sped out of the room. She smiled to herself, thinking about how Barry was so thoughtful and she could swear that sometimes he could read her mind.

Iris beamed over at the table where Oliver Queen stood. Her eyes could not leave the sculpted man who was obviously waiting for someone. She went about her business continuing to look at him.

Felicity and Barry entered Jitters and Barry went over to Iris and ordered three coffees. He remembered off the top of his head how Felicity and Oliver wanted their coffees as he moved over to the table the two sat. Iris moved as fast as she could to fulfill the orders, but she was really surprised when Barry went to Oliver's table and started talking to him like they were old friends.

 **"Roy G Bivalo. That's the name of your robber"** Oliver told Barry.

 **"How did you find that out? " he beamed then his face almost fell "The guy is still alive right?"** the question prompting what could almost amount as a death glare from Oliver.

 **"It's just a name. Something I came across while … doing some investigating of my own, which I thought you could use"** he commented before Iris came back with their order almost dragging Barry away from them

 **"You did not tell me you know Oliver Queen"** she beamed at him

 **"I know Oliver Queen"** He said visibly disinterested by her excitement.

 **"He looks so good, and his arms are like twice the size of yours"** She beamed while continuing to stare.

 **"Yea, thanks. I didn't even notice"** the reply came. The comment made Barry roll his eyes at the almost drooling stares Iris was giving his friend. He had done that on other occasions up to the point that he got nauseous seeing her do that. He took out his cell and texted Joe the name of the criminal to have him put out an APB on him. Back at the table, Felicity was giving Oliver the stare.

 **"You are never going to stop hawking me until I help Barry with his problem, are you"** he said bluntly.

 **"Nope. You know me, I'm a hawker, besides, maybe it would help you at least a bit to try to collaborate with someone instead of just being alone all the time. Maybe actually have someone to call in case you need help"** she saw him roll his eyes and get up from the table going back to Barry

 **"All right. I'll help"** Oliver spoke

 **"With what?"** Barry was a bit surprised

 **"With your problem. As long as you agree to let me train you"** the archer said bluntly

 **"All right. When and Where?"** He asked.

 **"Tomorrow morning, at the train yard. I'll be waiting** " Oliver replied as he and Felicity got up **"Don't come alone"**

 **"I'll be there, but I can't say the same for Caitlin. She might not want to be trained"** Barry replied as they were both coming out of Jitters and him speeding away toward STAR, after picking up a few pizzas for Caitlin.

It took Cisco a bit more than two hours, because he was actually playing with the EM field and the frequencies as well, but he was done. He called Barry and Caitlin to him to show them his work. The two showed up almost instantly ruffling all the documents he had laying on the desk, Caitlin looking a bit drunk, but the impression was gone the next second.

 **"I really need to invest in some paperweights"** he muttered **"This whole thing trying to put all my documents together whenever you decide to speed in is getting a bit old"**

 **"We`re here. Can we help with anything?"** Caitlin offered.

 **"No, I'm done. I need your bracers for a bit though. I'll update these so you can see what I did. The software on the bracers in your suits will update as soon as I modify the ones that I'm holding"** They gave him the devices and he started fiddling with them while pointing at two earrings that were sitting on his table.

 **"Caitlin, put those on if you don't mind"** She did as asked taking out her old earrings and putting them in her lab coat pocket. Cisco finished his tinkering with the bracers and gave them back.

 **"So here is what I made. The experiment you both ran gave me an idea and I played around with the frequencies. Those earrings now have two modes, besides being off obviously. I tweaked your gauntlets to be able to modify what frequency and what Type of EM field the earrings produce. Mode 1."** He pressed a button in a new menu on the gauntlets and as he did, Caitlin immediately reverted to her old self. Chestnut hair with rosy lips and brown eyes. She looked in the mirror and squealed with happiness **"is the frequency that reverts you back to your normal self. This will not take away your powers and the moment you turn them off"** which he did, prompting Caitlin to turn back into her Silver haired Blue eyed persona **"you turn back into your super hero ego"**

 **"This looks like some anime transformation"** Barry commented making Caitlin laugh thinking to herself **" _What a lovable nerd"_** Cisco smiled

 **"I know, right? That's so cool"** the engineer was visibly excited

 **"I want to have a cool superhero transformation."** Barry pouted but his mouth still had a smirk on it.

 **"Yes, I will look into making you Magical girl Flash next"** Cisco blurted making himself as well as Caitlin and Barry laugh.

 **"As long as you don't turn my pants into a knee high skirt and I don't have to wear nail polish to transform"** Barry managed to add between the laughs.

 **"Playing with your results and the frequencies as well as the power and amplitude of the magnetic Field I discovered that it can be used to negate powers completely. Remember what you told me, Barry, that Caitlin's cells consume the energy in them while she uses her ice powers?"** the engineer continued

 **"Yep. That's probably why our top speeds will not be the same. She will always have a lower top speed because her ice powers are a constant drain on the energy in her system"** Barry answered. Caitlin knew this already as Barry had laid it out for her in one of their dream meetings.

 **"Mode 2 however makes the earrings negate your ice powers, Caitlin"** He pressed a button and Caitlin was back in her original form **"Try throwing an icicle".** Caitlin made a move toward a stand in the room, but nothing came out of her hand. She looked suspiciously at Cisco. **"This mode allows you to just train your speed and increase the energy potential in your cells without having the constant drain. Negating your powers also mean that your form returns to normal, as you can see"**

 **"That is amazing, Cisco"** Barry beamed to his friend.

 **"But why give Barry the ability to turn on or off my powers as well"** Caitlin asked bluntly

 **"See, I thought you were going to ask me that. You know how Barry heals very fast, right?"** She nodded **"If you get hurt, turning off the extra energy syphon in your system will enable you to heal faster. More energy will be put in repairing yourself rather than being sucked by your ice powers"**

 **"I see. By giving Barry the power to turn off my ice powers, in case I am injured it will promote regeneration and speed up my healing"** Caitlin responded seeing the reason behind it and the fact that Cisco thought a lot before doing that.

 **"Precisely. With the success I had in creating those earrings for you I thought I would make shackles, or more accurately, bracelets, which would negate metahuman powers to be able to give them to the police if needed and also for us when we capture them so we could neutralize them"** Cisco continued to explain his plan while the two looked at him in awe. The engineer had done it again. Caitlin just went and gave him a big hug, thanking him for what he had done for her. She kind of figured the tech was complicated, but he even tried to make it unnoticeable, camouflaging it as earrings, so she could wear them everywhere without fear. She went to her bracer and turned the earrings off. When she did that a cold blue mist started to run off her almost enveloping her for a few seconds, before she emerged out of it as Frost.

 **"That's ... new"** Cisco said taken aback by the awesomeness he had just witnessed

 **"Actually it makes perfect sense"** Barry muttered **"When you negate her powers her temperature goes back to normal and her cells probably don't generate ice anymore. While that is true, when her power reasserts itself…"**

 **"For a few seconds my body temp goes down drastically to restart producing ice. During that time, the water around me cools "Caitlin continued**

 **"And when your body stabilizes ... the mist goes off because the temperature rises which creates a mini air flow that dissipates the condensation"** Barry finished

 **"That is AWESOME"** Cisco yelled **"Now that is what I would call an anime transformation"**

 **"That cloud of mist would be stupidly handy if we need to change fast out in the open. I'm glad we don't need a phone booth or something like that"** Barry thought out loud. Caitlin agreed with him. The mist was thick and it could envelop both of them seeing that they only needed a few seconds to change completely. Cisco however started to laugh out loud at the reference Barry made inadvertently.

 **"That's it. We're going out for food and drinks. I'm buying"** Caitlin replied turning the cosmetic mode on her earrings on **"You deserve it Cisco. Thank you again for doing this for me in such a short time "**

 **"What are friends for? Anything you need and it needs building, you know I'm here"** he replied with a bright smile on his face.

A few hours later in a bar the three friends were gathered to celebrate Cisco's work. They each got a shot and drank it. Barry made a weird face. Then he ordered another drink and gulped that too. Caitlin was looking at him. She already knew that alcohol would not affect them due to their metabolism. One of the days she went back home to try to relax with a nice glass of wine like she usually did after a hard day of work and ended up drinking the whole bottle noticing there was no effect.

 **"You can't get drunk, Barry"** she stated looking at him downing shot after shot. **"Or better said we can't get drunk"**

 **"Ugh. High speed metabolism, what a pain in the ass"** he answered a bit after thinking it over himself.

 **"Yes. The alcohol gets flushed from our systems almost immediately"**

 **"You knew about this?"** he asked looking at her.

 **"Not for long. I drink a glass of wine sometime at home to unwind. The last time I tried, I drank the whole bottle and nothing happened. I thought something was wrong, so I went and bought two more and drank those too, the alcohol having yet again no effect"** she recounted her own experience back to him.

 **"That's just great. I'm just 25 and my drinking days are already over"** he groaned prompting a smile from Cisco who took another shot while smiling toward the two.

 **"I think if we actually want to get wasted, or just something that gives us at least a buzz, we can always come up with something if we put our heads together"** She smiled and he nodded.

 **"By the way, Cait. The Arrow said he would help with our problem, but only if we let him train us. I don't know what training he could give us, but … he did say if we wanted it we should be in the morning back at the place we met the first time"** Barry told her

 **"Sure, maybe he'll be able to teach you not to rush head first into burning buildings"** she hit his shoulder gently

 **"And you to not throw icicles when you sneeze"** he replied as the three started laughing. They sat at a table and ordered food, spending part of the evening eating and laughing until they each made their way to their respective homes

Barry and Caitlin arrived on time, for once the next morning at the abandoned railyard. Must have been her influence on him. Oliver was quite surprised to see them both punctual. Felicity was with him eating some food and drinking coffee.

 **"I see she is able to make you keep an appointment. I have to commend you for that Caitlin, this guy is legendary for his tardiness"** Oliver grinned **"If you were by yourself I would have still had time for coffee and maybe a 30 minute training session by myself"**

 **"Good morning to you too, Grumpy"** Barry quipped at him, prompting Oliver to shoot an arrow straight at his face. Which he caught **"What the hell, Oliver?"**

 **"Never call me that again. I see you're looking normal, Caitlin"** He pointed at the doctor

 **"Good morning to you too. I forgot to turn these off".** She turned off the earrings, which for some reason last night were left on Power suppression.

 **"You are going to love this"** Barry commented. Blue mist began to form around Caitlin and after a few seconds, it dissipated with a wave as Frost walked toward them.

 **"That is SO COOL"** Felicity almost yelled. Oliver didn't say anything, but the half a smirk his face was showing told Barry enough.

 **"So, what are we here to learn?"** Barry asked

 **"Barry, you have an issue. Your speed makes you act cocky and while having Dr. Snow around for partner is a good thing, since she tempers that tendency you have, you need to be more careful when you go into a new environment"** He stepped into the open and pointed to a hill **"You are going to run over there, then run back to me, Then you are going to be shot with an arrow. Both of you"**

 **"I really don't think so, Oliver. Your arrows don't travel as fast as me"** Barry looked at Oliver awkwardly

 **"We'll see"** he smirked. Both speedsters ran to the place they were shown. Oliver put two arrows from his quiver on his string and fired. When they arrived both speedsters have caught their respective arrows. Except Oliver had a trick up his sleeve. Four crossbows had been hidden behind them, when they stopped all four fired.

Caitlin had noticed something amiss when she was running to the hill, as she heard the sound a wall of ice appeared behind her and Barry, but the arrowheads were heated. They punched through the ice wall two hitting Caitlin and two hitting Barry in the back .

 **"Oliver, really? You shot us?"** Barry asked while Oliver was pulling the arrows from his back.

 **"I heard you heal fast. The only way to truly learn a lesson is to feel pain. Maybe now you won't be so cocky" he grinned while Barry slowly pulled the arrows from Caitlin's back while she winced.**

 **"The arrows were heated. What would have happened if I didn't put up the ice wall?"** she asked bluntly

 **"Simple, it would have hurt even more than it does now"** Oliver simply replied **"You two can run so fast it makes like time stands still. So ... if you have that much time, why don't you sweep the perimeter? Find traps, disarm them, maybe formulate a plan … then go in? The arrows in your back would have been easily avoided, if you simply looked around. Even though, you still need to thank Caitlin. If it wasn't for her, your back would be burning as well as sore"**

 **"God damn it, Oliver"** a voice could be heard **"I thought you were kidding when you said you wanted to shoot them"** Felicity said annoyed that Oliver shot her friends

 **"See? This is why I don't take you out on missions. You had no idea those were there. If you did you'd have at least told Caitlin"** Oliver gave her a grin then turned toward the two that were sitting down slouching as they healed **"That is your lesson, for now. Expect the unexpected. Case everything, survey everyone in your environment and come back alive. You cannot save people if you are dead. Tomorrow we are going to go over a bit of basic tactics"**

The Speedsters started to heal already and while they were annoyed at Oliver they realized he was right. They could have simply avoided their wounded backs by a simple look around the airfield. This was a valuable lesson. Something both of them would not soon forget as the pain in their backs was a testimony to that.

 **"Come, eat"** Felicity smiled as she waved them over. There were already 5 orders of Big Belly Burgers on the small makeshift table which was actually a barrel.

 **"Thank you"** Caitlin smiled toward Felicity as they were eating. Not long after they finished Barry's cell rang. It was Cisco.

 **"Our face recognition software picked up Bivalo. You need to get back here right away"**


	10. Rage

Barry and Caitlin rushed back to STAR. They had left Felicity and Oliver back at the abandoned train yard as they sped back into the Cortex.

 **"Where is he?"** The Flash asked Cisco

 **"The Facial recognition system just saw him go into an old apartment building at 13th and Vine. Be careful"** Before Cisco managed to finish the two were out the door.

A few minutes later they were in the apartment both searching for Bivalo. There was nobody there much to their surprise.

 **"Cisco, you sure he's here?"** Frost asked

 **"That is the building where we got the ping from. Maybe he isn't yet in his apartment?"** Cisco managed to finish his sentence, the front door opened and they saw Bivalo. Before they could react, they were both hit with a flash of red disorienting them. When they have recovered their bearings, he was gone. Searching for him again yielded no results so they went back to STAR. They were both feeling dizzy so they decided to give themselves a checkup.

 **"That was weird"** Barry commented while Caitlin was checking his eyes.

 **"So, I'm guessing you saw the same flash of red I did?"** She switched places with him while he was doing the same to her.

 **"Yea, but… I don't feel any different. If we take the same timeframe compared to what happened at the bank, we should be already at each other's throat. So I guess our modified cells make us somehow immune to that effect"** Barry responded. Joe entered the Cortex searching for the two.

 **"Hey, Joe. Did anything turn** **up?"** Barry asked

 **"I put out the APB on Bivalo, even though Singh was really annoyed about it. I couldn't just tell him you got the name from the Arrow. Especially since the person that actually gave him that name turned up in a hospital with an arrow in his thigh"** the detective answered

 **"I have to give it to Oliver. He knows how to get information out of people. Even though I don't agree with his methods"** Barry replied to his adoptive father while he was concluding his examination on Caitlin while she got off the bed.

 **"I told you I don't like him"** Joe continued with his Anti Arrow tirade

 **"And I told you, Joe that he is my friend and I trust him. Why the hell would you not understand that already? I am not a child"** Barry could feel the rage building up inside him fueled by the annoyance at the old detective's preconceptions **"I can make my own decisions; I really don't need you to try to control me or my life. At this point in time, your own preconceptions that were definitely fostered by bad reporting and stupid media outlets that only report murders but do not know the man and his reasons behind doing what he does, do not interest me. Please keep your comments to yourself, especially when my friends are concerned"**

 **"Hey, Barry. Calm down"** Caitlin put her hand on his shoulder. She could not explain it but she could feel the overwhelming anger that he was showing. It was almost like anything else was drowned out, but it wasn't hers. Her eyes went wide. She was feeling _his_ anger. She almost immediately noticed the red tint in his eyes **"Joe wants what's best for you "**

 **"So you're taking his side…"** he tried to raise his voice at Caitlin, turning toward her **" _What am I doing?"_** he asked himself. This was not him; he could feel the rage inside. At Wells for the particle accelerator explosion, at Joe for trying to control his life, even though he was already an adult, at Iris for dumping him at STAR and dating Eddie, but when he turned to Caitlin… he could not find something to be angry with her about. She had been with him and helped him ever since he became the Flash. She could have left him alone and lock up her powers, but then who would patch him up every time when they came back from a mission. She was more careful, but he came back injured most of the time. He had no reason to be acting like that toward _her **"I have nothing to be angry about. If anything, I should be thanking Caitlin for being here whenever I needed her. Helping me"**_ he realized and calmed down almost immediately. The sudden change in his demeanor was obvious to everyone in the room. Caitlin, who was near him, saw the red tint disappear almost as fast as it appeared. Taking a deep breath, he spoke again with a normal voice **"Scratch that. It seems that Bivalo at least had an effect on me"** He took a hypo injector of horse tranquilizer and sat on the bed " **This should put me out for a few hours. I hope you come up with something to counteract the effects. The others were so mad that they actually tried to rip each other's eyes out, I shudder to think what I could do to all of you if I got reached that stage"** He laid down and shot the horse tranquilizer in his leg, turning on his side with his back to the group.

 **"What prompted that change of attitude?"** Cisco asked **"First he was enraged talking to Joe and then when he turned to Caitlin … "**

 **"We hypothesized from the start that the power enrages the person exposed to it. I do not believe that do be the case anymore. I suspect this metahuman's ability is not actually to provoke rage, but to enhance the feelings that were already there. Barry was mad at Joe and me for telling him we don't want the Arrow around. However, when he turned to Dr. Snow, he couldn't find a reason to be mad at her. So the effect just dissipated"** Wells concluded.

 **"You mean the anger … fizzled out?"** Joe interjected

 **"Yes, that is precisely what I mean. You, Dr. Snow, must mean a lot to him "Wells moved toward the consoles to help Caitlin with a cure.**

 **"She does. More than you will ever know"** Barry muttered in a low tone from the bed while he fell into a deep sleep. Nobody was supposed to hear him, but Caitlin was near his bed checking the monitors. She heard it loud and clear **" _I mean something to him, more than they will ever know"_** she repeated that in her head not wanting to believe her ears. **" _What do I mean to him?"_** she asked herself somehow feeling butterflies in her stomach while she started to work on a way to reverse the rage effect.

A few hours later while Barry was asleep Wells and Caitlin came up with a cure. Cisco was hard at work building something that would send the required light waves into the optic nerve to cancel out the effects. They had discovered that a combination of light in the visible spectrum, plus a burst of EM energy directed at the person's head could negate the effects of the rage inducing Meta. As soon as Barry was awake and everyone told him what they had found, he flashed over to Cisco's lab. He had no quarrel with Cisco and he liked the man, so it was rather safe since the rage effect would not activate for him and Caitlin's presence had a soothing effect on him

 **"Hey, man. Cait told me you were working on a way to reverse the effects?"** Barry smiled at the engineer.

 **"Yep, it's almost done"** he said pointing at a small flashlight looking device on his desk

 **"I was pretty hard to make it as small as it is, but you know me, I love a challenge"**

 **"Cisco, you loving a challenge is an understatement. You would play Dark souls on keyboard and mouse and complain it was too easy after a few playthroughs"** Barry smiled

 **"I love doing what I do. I love helping you guys save people. I love being a part of the team. Flash and Frost and I'm the support"** Cisco smiled widely as he said that. You could see on his face that what he was saying was the absolute truth. **"FlashFrost. BINGO. That's the name of the team"**

 **"Really, Cisco? You couldn't come up with a better name?"** Caitlin asked walking behind Barry. She did not speed through liking to just walk around the lab sometimes.

 **"Why you have to be picking on the Cisco?"** the engineer pouted

 **"Denied"** Barry replied making the engineer pout even harder **"So, after Cisco fixes me you want to go back to train with O… the Arrow?"**

 **"Yeah. Sure. My back still hurts where he shot me yesterday though. So I intend to slow down a little"** she replied

 **"I'm done. Stand still, Barry. Caitlin, move to the side. If you aren't affected I do not know what this might do to you** " the engineer spoke while he pointed the flashlight at Barry's face. She stood to the side noticing the redness in Barry's eyes come back and then faded after a few seconds of exposure to Cisco's new toy.

 **"How do you feel?"** she asked

 **"Definitely not angry anymore. Although, I didn't have what to be angry about. At you anyway"** They both left Cisco's lab flashing toward the Cortex.

A few hours later, both of them were back at the train yard were Oliver was waiting for them, ready to deliver another lesson.

 **"Glad you two could make it"** When he saw him, Caitlin's blood began to boil out of nowhere. She remembered the day before and she got angrier and angrier at the Arrow's methods. How could he even think to shoot them? Then she realized she didn't care that much that he shot her. She was getting severely pissed at the fact that Oliver shot Barry.

 **"Yeah. I hope you don't want to shoot us in the back again"** Caitlin hissed between her teeth. Barry could feel her anger, but had no idea as to what triggered it.

 **"I might"** Oliver smirked. As he was finishing his sentence Caitlin flashed around the training area and came back with a few crossbows, disarmed now

 **"No. I'm pretty sure you won't now"** she continued with a smirk. At that moment, a crossbow that was camouflaged near his bike shot two arrows that pinned Barry to the ground. One of his arrows was already flying toward her. She managed to get out of the way of it hitting her chest, but hit her arm instead.

 **"You were saying?"** Oliver smirked at her back. Seconds later an icicle flew millimeters from his face.

 **"You know I could just freeze you on the spot, don't you, Mr. Queen? On the other hand, do you prefer that I put a few spears through your gut and let you bleed on the ground? Whichever you prefer is fine with me, as long as it wipes that annoying smirk off your face"** she hissed moving toward him while throwing icicles. He would have no chance of dodging all of them. Barry lunged forward after managing to get the arrows out of his back while passing her recognizing the red tint in her eyes.

 **"Oliver, watch out. She's been affected by Bivalo. She's angry out of her mind right now"** Barry barely managed to get the icicles before they hit him.

 **"You think you're so smart, don't you. How about I show you how meaningless your life is and just how easy it would be for me to quench your worthless existence. You won't hurt Barry ever again"** She hissed while she began speeding toward Oliver no doubt to hit him. Barry realized she was moving at full speed and a punch at that velocity would probably break Oliver's head off and managed to get to him just in time and move him out of the way.

 **"Barry, what the hell is going on?"** Cisco asked through the com system.

 **"Cisco, Get over here as fast as you can with that flashlight thing. Caitlin is showing signs of being affected by Bivalo. She's actually trying to kill Oliver and she might succeed too if she keeps this up" the speedster yelled in the comms**

 **"On my way. Try to keep her out of the city. Her ice blasts could literally kill hundreds of people"** Cisco responded as he motioned toward Joe. Caitlin was at it again, this time running at both of them leaving a trail of dust in her wake. They all got in the STAR labs van and started racing toward the Train yard. Wells insisted to come with them in case her specific physiology would have issues with the cure. Barry sped to get Oliver out of Caitlin's way. Oliver already let go of an arrow full with tranquilizer. He was thankful that Felicity annoyed him to stop killing people so now he had Tranquilizer arrows in his quiver. Barry got to him just in time. Enough to get him out of there while the arrow hit her dead center in her chest.

 **"Tranquilizer Arrow. It should put her to sleep in a few minutes"** Oliver told Barry. Caitlin stopped and turned around Running back at them while throwing large ice spears, they were impressed by the way she was using her powers in combination, but she was becoming slower as she did that.

 **"I will never lose anyone else in my life. Not to you, not to anyone else, Oliver. You should have stayed in your corner. Pissing someone off that can literally break your neck with a slap at high speed was ballsy of you, but also a mistake. I'm about to show you just how big that mistake actually is"** Caitlin broke the arrow in her arm and pulled it out. She noticed that she was going slower, so she started vibrating. Barry looked as the bad reception silhouette in front of him was oozing green smoke out of her every pore. Before he could say anything, Oliver shot another arrow at her only to be met by a really thick ice shield which suddenly appeared in front of her. Barry was impressed; he would have never thought to use his speed to vibrate like that.

 **"Caitlin, calm down. Bivalo has affected you. You have no reason to be mad at Oliver, even if we did get hurt he taught us a very important lesson"** Barry tried to get his partner to stop.

 **"I hate people that try to hurt those who I care about"** Caitlin stated coldly almost with no emotion on her face. Barry felt cold anger coming from her and pain. She began forming a hail of icicles above her head as she fired them straight up. Barry was faced with a truth. He was someone that she cared about enough to provoke this kind of response at him being hurt.

 **"Damn. Oliver, hang on. This is going to be bad"** Oliver nodded, but he already had knocked at least three more tranquilizer arrows toward her and two of them toward some barrels that were behind her. The arrows hit her dead center … and fell down stopping dead in their tracks when they were supposed to go into her, leaving holes in the suit. Under the suit, her skin had been covered with ice.

 **"Are you kidding me? Now she has impenetrable skin?"** Oliver said worried looking at Barry who shrugged.

 **"First time I've ever seen her use that trick"** Barry commented

 **"Anything else you might have… forgot to mention?"** Oliver stated while pointing at Caitlin who was emitting a fog. Barry's leg was touched by it. He felt his leg being unable to move but with a last ditch effort he jumped taking Oliver with him a few meters away.

 **"We should not get hit by that fog. It has paralyzing effects"** Barry spoke as he noticed the moment the leg was out of the fog he could move it again. Oliver activated his exploding arrows blowing up the barrels behind Caitlin, but she was too fast for him, in a second the explosion was encased in a pillar of ice. Much like the night, they caught The Mist, as Cisco so colorfully dubbed him.

 **"Any way to get rid of her ice powers?"** Oliver asked Barry

 **"I could turn her earrings back on, but I don't think it's a good idea"** the speedster replied.

 **"Why not?"** the archer asked surprised.

 **"Her ice power saps the energy in her cells. If I would to turn it off sure, she wouldn't be throwing ice around. Nevertheless, she would be as fast as I am using her speed and I don't think I can stop her from hurting you if she is that fast. At least as it stands now we can dodge. Because she is slow"** the CSI explained to his friend.

 **"Yes but it's also what keeps her impenetrable to my arrows"** Oliver argued while sending two more arrows her way that did no better than the others. Then then it dawned on him, she didn't dodge at all, didn't even try to speed out of the way. **"Barry, did you see that?"** he asked while he was dodging icicles to keep his friend safe.

 **"I did. She did not even try to evade. She feels invincible"** then he smirked **"How many of those tranquilizer arrows do you still have?"**

 **"Four. Think they would be enough?"** a smirk came from Oliver

 **"I will have to keep her from vibrating to get it out of her system, but they should knock her out quite fast. Maybe 10 seconds would be my guess"** They saw the STAR van approaching and stopping quite close to the hail of icicles.

 **"Barry, here, take this"** Cisco threw the flashlight out of the window and Barry managed to catch it, giving it to Oliver. Joe and Wells looked as the Flash worked with the Arrow to try to get Frost under control.

Caitlin was preparing one of her ice rain attacks and the two looked at each other knowing this would be the best time to put their plan into action. Oliver cocked all four arrows and let them fly, but losing his focus as an icicle went through his thigh making him wince in pain.

She did not even try to dodge, but as the arrows got closer, Barry turned to his bracer and changed her earrings to suppression mode. The ice vanished instantly; Caitlin returned to normal fast enough for all four arrows to hit her. Two in the leg one in the chest and one in the arm.

Giving out a shriek she started to vibrate only to feel Barry's hands on her stopping the vibrations. He had come up behind her and was holding her tight.

 **"Now, Oliver"** he yelled. The people saw the Arrow get up as hurt as he was and move toward Caitlin shining the flashlight in her face. As she calmed down he fell bleeding and Caitlin fell asleep in Barry's arms, which were now holding her so she wouldn't fall.

 **"Remember me never to piss her off again… like ever. I don't want a repeat of this"** Oliver winced while he pulled out the ice spike that was in his thigh.

 **"Some of the things she did here, I had no idea she could do. She never tried before. The ice rain, the fog"** The speedster added

 **"The being impenetrable?"** Oliver smiled. Barry flashed Caitlin back to the van instructing the men to take her back to STAR then returned to the injured archer.

 **"Come on. I'll take you to STAR and get you patched up. I already told Cisco to call Felicity and Dig. They are going to meet us there"** Barry picked him up and ran to STAR as fast as he could. He knew that the Arrow's suit would not catch fire, being reinforced as his was. He put him on the table examining his wound. Using his speed he cleaned the wound, sewn the skin back put antibacterial powder on it and wrapped it real tight.

 **"You were lucky that spike didn't hit the femoral artery. You're not in any kind of danger. Except it's going to sting for a few weeks. Nothing for someone who literally has a roadmap of scars on his body"** Barry had seen how scarred he was when he helped him back in Starling.

 **"Thanks, Barry. That was some fast work. Did you give me a painkiller? It barely hurts now"** Oliver looked pretty impressed

 **"Yeah, I put some topical painkiller when I was sewing you up. It should dissipate in a few hours"** Barry grinned

 **"Just out of curiosity… how do you know how to do this? I knew you were a CSI but not a medical professional"** Oliver was surprised about how well Barry could handle a needle and thread

 **"When the lightning struck me and Cait… some of our knowledge got copied. Since she's the medical professional I became one and she became a CSI"** the speedster explained with admiration in his eyes, something Oliver caught on to.

 **"You like her, don't you"** the question hit Barry like a truck **"Don't try to lie to me. I saw the way you were looking at her when she transformed yesterday. Or better said gawking "**

 **"She is really a good friend and my partner. How could I not like her?"** Barry tried to deflect the question

 **"Barry! Would you please not try to skirt the issue here? I asked you a question. I expect an honest answer without you trying to be a smartass"** Oliver growled at him. It would have been probably much scarier with the voice synthesizer, but … Barry got the point

 **"Yes. I do"** he raised his arms in surrender

 **"There we go. Finally a little candor. I have lived this life for a long while and it can be very lonely. In my case, everyone that is close to me can be hurt or killed. That is why I keep myself out of relationships"** Oliver's voice calmed down, but there was a subtle pain in his tone that Barry picked up on.

 **"I would never let anything happen to her. Besides, you saw her today. She's a complete badass, it's not like she can't take care of herself"** the speedster commented, feeling proud of what he had already seen.

 **"Precisely. Which makes this easier for me to say. If I can't get the girl, doesn't mean you can't. Think about it and do not let her slip through your fingers. She seems like a really smart and wonderful person, when she isn't trying to kill you that is, then she's down right demonic"** Oliver offered an opinion which surprised the speedster

 **"Bloody great, I'm getting girl advice from a former Billionaire playboy that used to sleep with all women and their sisters. What is this world coming to"** Barry smiled prompting Oliver to hit him in the shoulder, quite hard, but he understood what the archer was telling him as they both smirked at one another. Oliver might have been a vigilante, but Barry never saw him as a necessary evil. For him, The Arrow was a hero and he was proud to have him as his friend.

Half an hour later Felicity and Dig along with everyone from STAR had come back. Caitlin was sleeping peacefully on one of the beds in the medical bay with Barry monitoring her. If before Joe and Wells were not trusting of the Arrow, after what they saw him do in helping Barry they had no more problems.

 **"Thank you for helping them"** Joe came up to Oliver and shook his hand

 **"Anytime. They are my friends"** he replied while shaking Harrison Wells' hand as well.

 **"So Oliver Queen is the Arrow huh?"** Cisco smiled while stating the absolute obvious, because Oliver was in the bed next to Barry in his full Arrow get up only without the mask **"Man I should have put two and two together. I'm such a numbskull "**

 **"Too many people already know my identity. I would appreciate if you keep this to yourselves. If the secret got out, then all of my family would be in danger"** The archer told them with a pretty serious voice.

 **"No worries here. We know how to keep secrets"** Cisco pointed to the two speedsters.

 **"Your secret is safe with us"** Joe added

 **"Oliver, if you ever need any kind of help, you know you can call us, right?"** Barry interjected from his chair

 **"Same goes here"** Oliver and Felicity spoke in unison.

 **"This is a different kind of hangover"** they saw Caitlin wake up and speak softly

 **"You all right, Cait? How do you feel?"** Barry was by her bedside in an instant

 **"Like someone shot me with 4 tranquilizer arrows"** she pouted and looked at the Arrow. **"Thank you, Oliver."** she told him with a voice that held no sarcasm or other undertones. She was sincerely grateful for his help.

 **"Anytime, Caitlin. Hope you`re feeling better and next time you feel the rage coming, how about you go punch a bag or throw icicles at some dummies and not try to turn me into Arrow kebab"** the archer gave her a faint smile

 **"She needs to rest. The sensors show that she severely depleted her cells while fighting us"** Barry stated while looking at his bracer. When he turned his gaze back to her he noticed that she had fallen back asleep. He flashed back to storage and got 30 or so IV bags with sucrose and dextrose and hooked a line up to her arm letting them drip slowly.

 **"I still cannot get used to that"** Diggle commented **"Why so many bags?"**

 **"Because of our sped up metabolism. This is the minimum required to get her energy stable again at least until she can eat"** Barry replied sternly. **"Where the hell do you think you`re going?"** he asked Oliver seeing him get up from the bed

 **"No offence to your setup here, but I would rather spend the night in a hotel rather than a hospital"** The Arrow replied while Diggle came to help him move.

 **"This was fun. We should do this more often"** Felicity replied prompting a glare from Oliver **"I mean this was fun, not you getting shot. Because that was not fun. I was not implying that you getting shot is fun in any way"** She ranted

 **"We're going back to the hotel. I should be fine by tomorrow to help you catch your bad guy" Oliver said as they were moving toward the exit.** "Unless you and miss frosty over there want to handle it all on your own?"

 **"You are always welcome to help, Oliver"** Barry replied **"Take it easy until tomorrow and if anything happens call me. I'll come patch you up if Dig can't handle it. Goodbye Dig. Goodbye, Felicity"** After the trio left, Joe spoke up.

 **"I'm sorry for doubting your friends, Barry. You are right. He is a good guy, but I still don't approve of his methods"**

 **"That's fine Joe. Neither do I, but whatever you might say, he is a great friend"** The speedster replied **"You can go home now. I'll grab myself a bite to eat and stay and keep an eye on Cait until she heals "**

 **"I'll see you tomorrow then"** Joe took his leave from the group and walked out followed by Wells

 **"Anything I can help with?"** Cisco asked looking at the two

 **"No, it's fine Cisco. You did more than enough with the earrings and the rage countering gizmo. Go home and rest"** the reply came

 **"Are you sure man? You know I can take the watch shift anytime you need a breather, right?"** the engineer replied

 **"I have gotten used to watching her sleep while entrenched in my own thoughts. I've been doing that for the last 6 months. It gives me … peace of mind, I guess"**

 **"Somehow, if that would be coming out of anyone else's mouth it would be extremely creepy"** Cisco replied **"But not from you. All right then. Good night, Barry. I'll see you in the morning"**

 **"Later, Cisco"**

After the engineer left, the speedster went and bought himself some food, a couple of pizzas and some donuts that were gone instantly. The fight with Caitlin had drained him especially because he had to carry Oliver around while trying not to get him killed. After the large intake of food, he suddenly felt better as night was falling on the city.

There was another reason Barry wanted to be alone with Caitlin. During her episode, he saw much more than rage in her. It was as if her personality shifted to being cold and ruthless. It would have not been obvious to anyone else that knew her if they weren't there, something was wrong and he could feel it. He got comfortable in his chair, took Caitlin's hand and drifted off to sleep.

He found himself at his father's cabin again, only this time the landscape was severely changed. Everything was frozen, the lake, the forest, the cabin and a cold wind howled across the silent valley. Almost like a banshee was wailing on the horizon. She was nowhere to be found. He saw a light from the cabin and he entered it. Inside he found an almost frozen Caitlin Snow still wearing her regular attire. He touched her and her clothes changed instantly to a thick winter jacket complete with thick pants and fur boots.

 ** _"Cait?"_** his voice trailed off making the figure jump up

 ** _"Oh god, Barry, what have I done. I almost killed Oliver"_** she started to cry ** _"I was so angry, I saw everything I did, except I could not stop it "_**

 ** _"It's all right, it wasn't you. It was Bivalo making you angry. You aren't like that"_** Barry hugged her tight

 ** _"No, but I am"_** a voice could be heard from the outside as a powerful wind almost tore through the cabin apart leaving them out in the open. Barry could see Frost standing there. He was shocked, Caitlin was in his arms, so why was Frost out there. Then he realized something was off so he decided to play the game.

 ** _"Who are you? And how did you get here"_** he inquired with an annoyed voice.

 ** _"Oh, come on, Barry. You don't know who I am? I am part of her and my name is Killer Frost"_** The person replied giving him a dark smirk.

 ** _"Killer Frost, well aren't we grandstanding. You aren't a killer just as much as Caitlin isn't. Would you like to try again?"_** Barry told her

 ** _"Oh but I am. Why do you think you had to save Oliver from getting murdered? Those icicles had specific targets"_** Killer Frost replied while Caitlin was looking at her.

 ** _"Yeah, right. Can you cut the crap, most of the icicles that were thrown were aimed at non-lethal spots. I should know that, because I have the same knowledge she does. So please, do tell me how badly you wanted to kill him, while making sure that the icicles you threw missed vital areas by millimeters"_ **Barry hissed back at her and pointed at Caitlin, making Killer Frost wince. He was perfectly right, the icicles were supposed to damage him, but not kill him. The frozen persona was extremely surprised that the speedster managed to read the trajectories so well. Caitlin was terrified; she took ahold of his hand and started gripping it tightly. Barry responded by simply taking her in his arms and kissing her forehead. He could feel her calming down.

 ** _"My, my, aren't you the smartass"_** She growled **" _Let's see how you handle this then"_** she put out her hand and a few ice spears flew toward the two that were sitting ducks, but by the time they were near them, they disappeared.

 ** _"Aren't we cocky"_** Barry answered. **" _You are in OUR dreamscape. You might be her, but you are not in control of this environment, because I'm not letting you. The only person who is allowed here is Caitlin Snow. While you might be a part of her, you are not her. Do not try that again, next time I will have you tied and gagged so I don't have to listen to you anymore"_** Barry responded actually threatening the person in front of him, but also asked himself who would she be. By looking at Caitlin he was holding in his arms, even though she was cold, although she was wearing winter gear, her gaze was soft and warm. Her demeanor was gentle and she even tried to smile through the tears. Then it dawned on him **_"I know what you are. It's so damn obvious, I wonder why I didn't see it the moment the forest started freezing" =_** Barry stated bluntly looking at the grimaced figure of the woman that was now dawning Caitlin's Frost costume.

 ** _"Oh ho ho. Pretty boy thinks he has me all figured out doesn't he? I'm so anxious to hear what you have to say"_** she smirked at him trying to rain icicles on both of them. Barry stood up and motioned toward them, like being commanded by a higher power the spears and the flurry of icicles that came with them vanished into nothingness.

 ** _"I told you what would happen if you try that again. Don't say I didn't warn you. Just stop. You have no power here. But since you don't seem to believe I would actually do that, how about we show you"_** He looked at Cait next to him and she nodded, putting her hand into his. With a wave of Barry's hand Killer Frost's hands were tied behind her back with chains and she was stuck to the ground. The storm had subsided to just a light snow coming from the sky ** _"It's pretty obvious what you are. You are every hurt feeling, every pain and sorrow, every failure and disappointment that Caitlin Snow has ever had. The feelings she thinks she needs to bury under the surface. Every one of us has those feelings, the moments we really just want to kill people, when we want to hurt them or just play with them. Some of us get rid of them by venting. Caitlin however never vents to anyone"_** Barry continued.

Killer Frost was speechless. Which was a first for her because ever since the pretty boy made his appearance she would not shut up. It was weird for her how this one managed to read her so well even though they had just met. While Killer Frost was shocked by Barry's reply, Caitlin spoke from behind him

 ** _"How do you know I kept them bottled up?"_**

 ** _"Come on, Cait. What do you take me for? Your father died and left you with your mother who didn't know how to treat you right. You didn't really tell me much, but I could see a lot of pain in those words. Then there was the boyfriend you loved and he died in your arms. Then Ronnie died and you kept acting all calm and collected even though I was pretty sure his death was tearing you up inside"_** he replied quite sternly to her question **" _You haven't been the only one who experienced loss. I have told you that before. I know what you do with those feelings because I used to do it too. Nevertheless, I have learned to live with my pain. Make it work for me; turn it into passion for my work and the superhero stuff we do on the side. Under all that cold",_** and he pointed toward Killer Frost **" _You're still you. Killer Frost is still you, just a part of you that instead of accepting, you buried under 50 feet of snow"_**

 ** _"I don't know how to do that, Barry. I have not had someone to talk to in my life except Cisco and to be honest these problems are stuff too heavy even for him to handle. I know he's my friend, but he has no idea what I'm going through"_** Caitlin replied while Killer Frost tried to get herself free from her binds

 ** _"Then why don't you talk to me? Hmm? You know very well what I have been through. Why do you keep it all inside, to the point your powers get their own evil personality who wants to kill people. What are you trying to do, turn into the Hulk? Not that you probably won't look hot in green, but come on"_** Barry snickered

 ** _"You have your own issues. I don't want to burden you with mine. I want to be able to handle my own problems"_** Caitlin raised her voice at him

 ** _"I never said you can't handle your own problems, Cait. But sometimes you need someone with you when you need to shovel something out of 50 feet of snow"_** a shovel appeared in his hand, making Caitlin chuckle " ** _I am your partner and your friend, you can talk to me about anything and I will listen, maybe offer advice or just a tub of cream and a Disney movie because I suck at advice"_** her eyes lit up at that remark **" _I would rather you talk to me about your problems than keeping Ms. Hyde here. Actually, I would rather make you tell me about your issues rather than having her running the show. No offense to you Frost, but you seem a bit cold for my tastes. I would rather have the warm and gentle Dr. Snow back, if you don't mind"_** Killer Frost was shocked at the speedster who simply called her a bitch in not so many words.

 ** _"She did almost kill Oliver. Even though he did nothing wrong, he was just trying to train us, the fact that we got hurt, that was on us for not being careful. Maybe…"_ **Caitlin considered the possibility that her keeping bottled feelings inside could turn her into a monster. A killing machine, someone that would have no restraint and would hurt everyone that she cared about. That she would hurt Barry, which would be something she couldn't live with. Her heart started to race at hearing him say that he would rather have her than Frost. She knew she was cold, but Barry had seen another facet of her and was not willing to let that go. She felt his hand giving her a little squeeze **" _Maybe I kept my feelings bottled up for too long. It might be time to face the music. You can go Barry. I think I can take care of her now."_** she told him as she stood up

 ** _"You`re kidding, right?"_** Barry smiled and tightened his grip on her hand. **" _Did you seriously forget what we just talked about? I'm your partner. I'm here to stay whether you like it or not"_** She didn't object. She wanted him here and she knew it now.

 ** _"Take care of me?"_ **Killer Frost hissed at Caitlin **" _You are afraid of me. You shoved me aside and, later on, hid me because you couldn't face your pain. Just a crying little girl who wants to run home to mommy. Now you needed a white knight in tattered armor to come save you"_** Caitlin moved with Barry hand in hand closer and closer to where Killer Frost was pinned.

 ** _"Frost, tattered armor means he has seen battle. Whoever has a shining piece of armor means that he is more interested in keeping his appearances than fighting. You got that right, Barry is a fighter. You might be correct in what you have just said. Yes, I am just a crying little girl, one that had to be strong for her own sake. One that had to hide her feelings and pain not for the sake of others, but for her own sanity. I was always alone; I always had to be the tough one. But not anymore"_** She looked at Barry and he smiled brightly. She left his hand, went back to Killer Frost, and embraced her. **" _You are me and I am you. Maybe it's time we both deal with what the other is carrying, hmm?"_**

 ** _"The little girl finally is not a little girl anymore, even with a little help, she is finally ready to grow up"_** Killer Frost smiled, something Barry would have never thought he would see, but more than that he could swear that the so called murderer was crying **" _Good work. I'll see you around, pretty boy"_** There was a blinding blue light and when Barry could finally see there was no more Killer Frost, just Caitlin Snow, dressed in her Frost Outfit smiling back at him. Barry did notice however that the environment did not change.

 ** _"I would like to see you smile more like that"_** Barry thought to himself but the dreamscape made it so that it was said out loud **" _I guess, you`re finally ready to talk, huh?"_** he smiled back to her.

 ** _"I am now that I know someone wants to listen. But first ..."_ **she smiled and moving toward him she took his hand in hers. The moment she did that, her Frost outfit started to shimmer, wave after wave it started to disappear leaving way to a beautiful dark blue sleeveless dress with black heels. His changed as well, from the hard winter coat to a simple black blazer with a white shirt and a pair of jeans. Rings of color started to radiate outwards from them changing the landscape, melting the ice and clearing the air of frost as the rings went further and further away. They were back to their perpetual summer afternoon at his Dad's cabin. The landscape they had gotten used to some while ago. **" _… There we go. I like the cold, but I like the warmth better"_** she smiled as they sat in the swing, Caitlin finally feeling able to talk about the problems in her life with the one that was sitting next to her, her partner and friend, Barry Allen.

The next morning Cisco had come early to work to see how Caitlin was. When he saw the two sleeping hand in hand, he decided to take a picture for blackmail purposes and left to buy food and coffee knowing they would both wake up hungry. When he came back both of them woke up at the smell of fresh coffee.

 **"Good morning, Sleeping Beauty. How are you feeling?"** Barry asked as he got up from his chair wincing from pain.

 **"Like a bad hangover. Next time you want to hold my hand while we sleep, sleep in a bed. Not a chair"** she smirked looking at him wincing from pain while his neck was kept all night in a weird position **"For someone with super healing, you don't seem to heal that fast from sleeping in a bad position"**

 **"Why … would he want to hold your hand when you sleep?"** Cisco made a surprised face **"You know I said that you watching her sleep is not creepy, well … starting to change my opinion right about now"**

 ** _"Should we tell him?"_** Barry's eyes were asking Caitlin as she nodded.

 **"Keep this to yourself Cisco, all right? It's a bit crazy"** she started.

 **"Remember how Wells used to ask me why I was so calm about Cait's coma? Like the fact that I never really worried about her being brain damaged or brain dead?"** Barry continued

 **"Yea, I was asking myself that. We were worried and you were just so …. Calm and collected. It was almost like you knew she was going to wake up"** Cisco replied

 **"Yeah… that is because I was talking to her. Every night. She helped me come up with new ideas for tests and other stuff, like the poly vitamin serum that I used to keep her body up to speed and other things"** the speedster replied with a serious face.

 **"Say what now?"** Cisco looked dumbfounded **"How could you talk to a coma person, you told me yourself that they have most of their brain shut down"**

 **"We figured it was because the lightning hit both of us. When we sleep, if we touch, we end up in a dreamscape where we can talk. Don't ask why or how or even how it works. The best we could figure is the fact that our brainwaves are synchronized leads to the creation of said world"** Caitlin said and Cisco's eyes widened

 **"So you`re telling me if you touch you can speak, in your heads ... while sleeping"** the engineer looked at them with a face that was the epitome of shock.

 **"See now that just … sounds crazy"** Barry added. **"But that was the reason we needed to hold hands, nothing creepy or whatever else you were thinking about Cisco, because you would be the one that would think something like that. Call it our own way to check if the other is all right"**

 **"That is some weird shit man. However, it does explain why you were so chill about Caitlin's coma. You knew all along she was alive in there"** Barry nodded **"That is nuts. What else now? Are you going to start reading each other's minds or feel each other's feelings. Vulcan mind meld style"** He started fanboying out while Caitlin and Barry looked at each other and smiled.

 **"Thank you"** she mouthed toward Barry without actually speaking.

 **"You are welcome"** he answered feeling his hand being held tighter by her.

The next morning, Barry and Caitlin managed to apprehend Bivalo. This time the metahuman not even managing to realize when he was in the cell. Barry didn't want to take any sort of chances, so they knocked him out and before he woke up, they had already put him in a cell in the Pipeline. They did want to call on Oliver, but they found out that the injuries were indeed painful and without a hefty dose of painkiller, he wouldn't even be able to stand, so they just told him that they caught him and told him to rest. He wasn't really happy, but Felicity was thankful and so was Diggle since he was the one who had to patch the archer up when he got trashed out in the field.


	11. Plastique

It was a normal day for the speedy duo. They were zipping around the city just out for a run. Cisco would call it patrol, but for them it wasn't. They enjoyed each other's company and they did like to run, courtesy of both being speedsters. Caitlin was much more relaxed than usual. The two had started to share their problems with each other more than usual after the Rage incident and Caitlin felt at peace when she was with him.

 **"Remember when you said that we might actually have to talk to Iris into at least giving her our names so she doesn't call us the streak?"** Barry asked Caitlin after they changed back into normal clothes and Caitlin activated the cosmetic mode on her earrings.

 **"Yeah. That would be preferable, since she has probably realized by now that there are two of us ... she will probably have more questions than she had before"** Caitlin answered. **"Why? Do you want us to go talk to her?"**

 **"To be honest, while I don't mind me and you being one and the same, people don't understand there are two of us. If by any chance we would need to split up, it wouldn't create controversies or rumors later"** Barry answered.

 **"Oh? What kind of controversies?"**

 **"I would like to be as to be as transparent as possible with the people. If not, they might not trust us and we could have issues with the police. That's not even the worst thing that can happen. Imagine the cops sending a task force to hunt us down. We wouldn't be able to do anything in this city anymore without them being on our backs. That would be rather … shit. Don't you think?"** Barry managed to explain what he was thinking. Caitlin saw the wisdom in those words and nodded. Even though they were not vigilantes, the police had no way of knowing what their intentions were.

 **"All right. We'll go tonight. When is Iris finishing her shift at Jitters?"** Caitlin offered.

 **"Around 8:30. We still have some time. You hungry?"** Barry asked looking at his stomach.

 **"You know I am. Pizza or Big Belly Burger?"** she asked

 **"I would go for both"** Cisco entered the cortex smiling.

 **"Well, you heard the man"** Barry answered. They smiled at each other and they were both gone returning in under a minute and depositing all the food on a table **"Food is served"** the speedsters smiled at the engineer who took a seat at the table.

 **-CC Jitters. Later that night –**

Iris had just finished her shift, everything was quiet, the place was locked except for the employee back door and she started to clean the tables, suddenly two flashes of lightning cleaned everything up in record time and in a matter of the blink of an eye, she was up on a rooftop in the middle of the city.

 **"Hello, Ms. West. I heard you've been writing a blog about us"** a metallic voice scared her as she turned around. She saw two silhouettes. One of a man dressed in a red suit, which she could not make out the face of because it was vibrating and one of a woman, with white hair and silver blue eyes dressed in a blue suit.

 **"Us? You mean the streak isn't just one person?"** she asked looking at the two.

 **"No. There is no streak. I am the Flash and this is my partner…"** Barry spoke

 **"Frost"** the other metallic voice sounded. Barry taught Caitlin how to mask her voice if needed. She didn't need to do the same as him, because her two forms were so different.

 **"So ... there are two of you protecting Central City"** Iris looked at them with glee in her eyes.

 **"Yes. As you can see. There is no streak"** Frost responded to her.

 **"Mind if I ask you some questions? Would help if I could post them on my blog. The readers want to know more but I do not have that information"** Both nodded. **"First question and the most important one. What can you do?"**

 **"We can run really fast"** The Flash answered. He gave her a sample of his running, by going up and down the building in front of her and coming back down.

 **"And ... I can do some other stuff. Like this for example"** Frost motioned her hand and a wall of ice appeared behind Iris. Barry and Caitlin had agreed in advance not to give Iris too much information to spread around. If they would have enemies, they wouldn't want complete information about their powers spreading around.

 **"Now I understand why your name is Frost"** Iris answered. **"How did you get your powers?"**

 **"Like any other metahuman out there. The particle Accelerator Explosion"** Frost replied.

 **"What determined you to help people instead of going berserk like the others"** Iris inquired quite openly

 **"We have always wanted to help people. We have normal lives ourselves, which we have dedicated to helping others. It would seem fit that we would do the same as metahumans. Besides, we don't have delusions of grandeur like the others that have powers. We know we're just humans with extra ordinary abilities"** Barry answered swiftly in his metallic voice.

 **"Ms. West. We would ask you to stop writing about us"** Frost said coldly.

 **"But I want the city to know about you. The way you help and that you are heroes"** Iris tried to make her point across to the two heroes.

 **"Yes, but you are putting yourself in danger. If any metahuman wants to find us, the first person he will come for is you. Do you understand that?"** the Flash continued his partner's thoughts.

 **"Of course I understand that. However, nobody knows anything about you. I want to be the one who does"** She scoffed

 **"Sometimes being stubborn isn't worth your life, Ms. West"** Frost said with a determined voice throwing two ice daggers that planted themselves into the ground at her feet. **"You could be dead just like that and we won't be able to help you "**

 **"I want to take my chances. I realize full well that there are risks writing about you. I know that other people might think that I know who you are or how to get to you. I'm taking all those risks on myself, because I truly believe that the world needs to know about heroes like you"** Iris said with a stern voice **"And what…"** before Iris could finish her sentence Frost interrupted her.

 **"That is enough for today, Ms. West. We might meet again, we might not for now, we both are pretty busy"**

Iris blinked and she was back inside Jitters. She took out her laptop and started writing an article. _"Flash and Frost. The protectors of Central City?"_

After this happened her, Barry, Caitlin and Cisco received an invitation to go out with Eddie and Iris to a local bar. The two speedsters already knew they couldn't get drunk, but it didn't really matter. The three sat at a table watching Eddie throw darts at a target, Iris behind him smiling and cheering him on

 **"That is a real problem"** Cisco commented looking at Eddie.

 **"Yea, we all have problems when guys like him are around, nobody actually cares about the smart nerds when a blonde blue eyed jock is around"** Barry commented visibly disappointed at the looks Caitlin was throwing toward Eddie. He had gotten way too much of that look from Iris, when she was drooling all over Oliver Queen or when she was casually snogging Eddie, which for some reason she seemed to do quite a lot while he was around.

 **"Yeah, he's so hot, he's almost perfect"** Caitlin blurted out. Barry scoffed **"From a genetic point of view, you know because I'm a geneticist"** she babbled **"Oh, god. I sound like Felicity don't I?"** Caitlin could feel the extreme amount of annoyance Barry felt at hearing her say those words. Even more when she started babbling trying to hide what she actually meant. She turned to see him with a blank face looking in the distance trying not to say something that would probably ruin their night. She couldn't hold the comments in but at that moment she realized that she inadvertently had hurt Barry. She realized why pretty soon, it was because she was gawking at Eddie, the guy that stole the woman he used to love ever since he was a boy and now she was doing exactly the same thing. She wanted to apologize, but before anything came out of her mouth, Barry just turned around and went toward the bar. The guilt that she was now feeling might have pushed her to follow him and say something, but Eddie's phone rang out of nowhere.

 **"Sorry, guys ... I need to go. There's something happening downtown. Bye sweetie"** he quipped toward Iris and kissed her gently. Barry, who came back when he heard the phone, and Caitlin managed to excuse themselves while Cisco held up his phone saying he had something to work on at the lab. Several seconds later, they were both in their suits and running toward the crime scene. Iris was heading there as well, she knew if there were people in danger then there was a good chance that Flash and Frost will be there too.

 **"Hey, you all right?"** Caitlin asked as they ran **"You seem a little quiet"**

 **"Yea, I'm fine"** his answer came swiftly, but his tone was cold. She knew he wasn't fine, but stopped trying to make him talk about it, when he cut her off so sternly with three simple words. It was obvious he didn't want to explain anything to her. While thinking about it more she realized that the only way Barry would be annoyed at her would be **" _Jealousy? No that can't be, now can it. How could Barry be jealous? I mean … he doesn't like me … does he?"_** she told herself. Before she could think more they were already at the crime scene.

 **"There are two people up there hanging from a Window washer stand"** she spoke

 **"I don't know. Is there any way to keep them from falling? Maybe stack mattresses under them or something so that they don't get hurt?"** Barry tried to give a solution, but it was a bit … off the rails.

 **"Barry, it doesn't work that way, this isn't a roadrunner cartoon. The impact would most likely kill them anyway. But … there might be another solution. Cisco you there?"** she asked through her comms

 **"Yeah, I'm monitoring you"** he replied through their comms.

 **"How fast would we have to go to run up the side of a building? I know we have to keep our speed coming down of we don't want to crash into the pavement"** Frost asked bluntly

 **"How far up do you have to go?"** the engineer asked

 **"50 meters. Give or take"** Barry answered.

 **"About 550 mph"** the answer came after a bit of time that gave Cisco the time to calculate the speed they would need to have.

 **"We can do that"** they both got a distance away from the building and started running. As they went up the wall, two streaks of lightning could be seen from the other side of the building. Iris had already arrived on the scene and smiled when she saw them.

 **"You grab one I'll grab the other?"** she asked and he nodded. In a few seconds they arrived back down with the two injured people stopping right in front of Iris. None of them noticed her at first as they were checking the people for injuries, but then Frost turned her head and saw her standing there. Barry began to vibrate his face and with a look, they both disappeared headed back to STAR labs.

Barry didn't say anything for the remainder of the evening, even leaving without saying goodbye, because when she wanted to go look for him he was nowhere to be found. Caitlin kept admonishing herself for doing what she did, thinking up ways to try to get him to talk to her. She wanted to know for sure if he was jealous and if he was why it was like that. The two were not together so him acting like this made little sense to her. The only thing that actually did made was the fact that in both situations it was because of Eddie. She went home and stopped thinking about it trying to sleep it off, but the more she tried to put it out of her mind, the more it returned. It was like she had an itch there that couldn't be scratched. That caused her not to be able to rest thinking almost all night about how badly she had screwed up. The thing was, she had run in her head every scenario she could think of about why Barry was acting like that and she couldn't come up with any answers. That was bothering her quite a lot.

Barry had indeed left and decided to take a walk through the city. No clear place to reach, just walking around with the thoughts in his head. He was bothered by what had happened, he was angry and sad at the same time. The way he was feeling could have started something pretty nasty between him and his friends, specifically between him and Caitlin, so he decided to just skip everything. He wanted to be alone, his blood was boiling and he needed to cool off. So much so, that he ran all the way to Starling City and back just to be alone. There was nobody in the cortex to monitor him and he would not be disturbed. After coming back home way past midnight, he just went to bed. His thoughts weren't clear to him, not yet, but he wasn't angry anymore. He was just … apathetic. The run to Starling had drained him so he fell asleep almost instantly after he hopped into bed.

The next morning, Barry received a call from Joe. He was called in to the same building where he and Caitlin saved those workers the other night. Apparently, inside there had been a bomb attack and one person was injured.

 **"So? Find anything?"** Joe asked the CSI

 **"You know, usually when there's a bomb involved there is always a pattern. The types of wires, fragmentation, the accelerant they use, the oxidizing agent, type of explosive and so on. Give me a bomb and I can most certainly find a clue in it"** Barry told him

 **"I sense a but coming"** the old detective looked at him

 **"Quite a large but, I'm afraid. I have found no trace of any oxidizing agent. It's like the floor blew itself up"** Barry replied.

 **"Come on Bar. Things just don't blow up by themselves"** the detective sounded surprised and the he fell in thought.

 **"The security guard that was here last night said that the bomber was a woman. Red hair"** Eddie was walking down toward the two **"The security feeds have been scrubbed, but we might have something else"** He motioned them to a door on a side **"This is the only door that was affected, it looks like the knob was blown off with a small charge"** They entered the room and saw rows upon rows of filing cabinets. **"My guess whatever was stolen ... it was one of these files. It will take months for us to find out which one"** Eddie sounded disappointed.

 **"Well, we'd better let Barry get to work then"** Joe exited the room with a smirk on his face that only Barry could see

 **"Good luck, Barry. I wouldn't want to be you right now"** Eddie waved and left the room himself. Barry looked at the piles and scratched his head.

 ** _"I'm going to need help"_** he pulled out his phone, hesitating. He knew that this room would take him a long time, but somehow it was as if he didn't want to see her, after last night. After a bit of thinking he realized that he was acting childish. They were partners and no matter how much stuff would be between them, they would always help each other. He admonished himself for avoiding her and gave her a call **"Cait, are you free right now?"** he asked

 **"Yeah. What happened?"** her voice was heard

 **"Come to me. I need a hand with something"** He closed the call and in half a minute Caitlin Flashed into the room **"I need to find what was stolen from these files. Think you can lend a hand so that I don't spend the next 12 hours here?"**

 **"Of course"** she smiled. **"I'll take A through J you take the rest?"**

 **"Sounds like a plan"** After an hour he had found a folder that was out of place. **"Hey, did you find anything?"**

 **"Nothing seems to have been disturbed on my side? You?"** Caitlin replied

 **"Yea. This folder was not where it was supposed to be. I guess whatever got taken was from here. I guess this means we`re done. Thank you for the help, Cait"** the speedster told his partner.

 **"Always. You`re welcome. Are … you all right?"** she asked fearing that he might still have a problem after leaving last night

 **"Why would you ask that?"** the response came in form of yet another question directed right back at her

 **"You left last night, you didn't say you were leaving, didn't say good bye. You also ran to Starling City without having someone to monitor you, which seems like a breach of the promise we made together"** she replied quite bluntly. Barry had made a small mistake taking his suit on his run, since it had GPS and most of the times while the suit was out from the lab, the servers would keep track of where it's been.

 **"I just needed some time alone to deal with some stuff"** he returned quite nonchalantly

 **"So, the fact that we're supposed to talk to each other about our problems …"** she tried to say something being almost immediately cut off by him

 **"Can only be done if that person is not the actual cause of the problem. You really want to know?"** he retorted while checking the folder

 **"That's the stupidest thing I've heard in a long time. If I was to be the cause of your problems, I'd be the first that would want to hear about it. I would assume it had something to do with the way I was looking at Eddie the other night, I did notice the change in how you acted right after I started to babble Felicity style"** Caitlin was a bit frustrated

 **"Yes, you see … I've gotten that a lot from Iris. Recently, that time when Oliver came to help, she started gawking at him and I could swear she was drooling at his biceps. Of course, that is just the most recent incident. That sort of thing has begun to annoy me very much and the more it happened, annoyance evolved to anger. When she is concerned, I started to become apathetic, not care. The surprise came from a woman that I didn't really think would do that. That was you. I got angry at you, not that much about you gawking at him, but the fact that it was the same man that I guess you could say stole, the woman that I have fawned over for the last decade or so"** Barry started to explain while she looked at him rather surprised that he was actually willing to talk

 **"So, you thought that after he stole Iris, I might fall for him? Or what was the rationale behind that anger?"** Caitlin tried to understand

 **"The anger I felt doesn't have any rationale, but I was pretty pissed. When people are pissed or drunk they say things they don't mean, which is why I left last night and didn't tell you about that run to Starling City. I wanted to cool off and not ruin everyone else's night"** He continued with his explanation. While he spoke, he saw Caitlin's face turning dark, so much so that he actually was a bit scared.

 **"Barry Allen. I don't give a shit about what you thought you would say, you have talked to me when I was with my problems and I will be here to do the same when you have yours. Even if you didn't want to talk to me because of what happened, you still needed to be kept an eye on in case something happens. While I understand your reasons to want to be alone, we promised each other that one will monitor the other that goes out alone. You get a free pass now, because I have been where you are and I have acted the same. But this is THE ONLY time that you get one. Do this to me again and you will find yourself on the burning end of a concentrated ice beam right up your butt hole. Do you understand?"** She replied and from the anger she was displaying, he understood that he screwed up. She was perfectly right, even if he didn't want to talk, that promise was already made.

 **"Yes. I do"** That was all he managed to utter, but in his head he was smiling madly, he realized now how much Caitlin cared about him. Threatening someone to freeze their ass off inside out was not something the cool and collected doctor had done in the time that he knew her.

 **"Good to hear"** her demeanor suddenly changed, she gave him a beautiful smile and flashed out of the room. After last night, she had thought that they would have a problem working together. She was happy, her partner was back. She never liked seeing Barry broody, the other night being something that was totally out of character for him, which surprised her completely. She did however make a note in her mind that she would try to never be the cause of one of his problems, she wanted him to be happy, not sulky and depressed. She smiled to herself and ran back to STAR. Barry put the folder in the evidence bag and went back to the precinct. When he arrived, he saw Joe with a soldier waiting for him. He had put all the collected evidence in a box and was about to go up to his lab to analyze it.

 **"Hey Joe, what's with the army here?"** he inquired

 **"General Eiling wants all the evidence from the bombing. They are taking over this case"** Joe answered with an annoyed look

 **"Well, ok. This is all I have with relation to what they need"** Barry hands over the evidence to the soldier, but before he could walk away he swiped the folder with his super speed.

 **"I'm going to take this to STAR labs and see if we can come up with something"** he told Joe who nodded and left the building in a hurry.

Back at the west residence Iris was looking over her blog, when Joe came in early from work

 **"Hi dad, I didn't know you would come home so early"** Iris smiled at her father who returned seeing that his case had just been hijacked by the military.

 **"Iris, what were you doing at the crime scene last night? Don't deny you were there, one of my officers saw you. I've told you before, Eddie is a big boy he can take care of himself now"** the detective told his daughter

 **"I wasn't there for Eddie. I went to see the streaks"** Iris defended herself. **"I have been writing a blog about them, but I did not have new information so, after I met them, I went to check them out in action"**

 **"Wait, wait, you met them?"** Joe looked at her with a displeased face

 **"Yes, Flash and Frost. That is what they are calling themselves. Look, Dad, something incredible is happening in Central City and I am going write about it. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get to work. Blogging about superheroes doesn't really pay the bills"** she smiled as she went out the door leaving Joe with a surprised face sitting on the couch.

Meanwhile at STAR Labs, Barry had returned with the file cover that he managed to snatch from the military that came back for all the evidence.

 **"Really? A VA file number is all you have on the bomber? I thought you were a CSI not Sherlock"** Cisco was looking at Barry crooked

 **"The CCPD has been taken off the case on this one. The military came lead by some general … Eiling"** Barry responded

 **"General Wade Eiling"** Wells came into the room **"I know him. About 10 years ago he had a contract with STAR Labs to develop enhanced gene therapies for soldiers, while I was interested for the potential medical benefits for civilians. The treatments were supposed to give the soldiers mind reading capabilities for interrogation purposes. I stopped the experiments as soon as I found out about his methods. Let's just say our split was … less than amicable. The man was looking for things that I could not offer him. When I wouldn't cooperate I heard he had gone to other places to get the desired drugs and tech, but most of them, including Mercury Labs, refused him outright for being too extreme to use on humans. I have heard afterwards that he has been doing experiments on some of his own soldiers, however I didn't find any sort of evidence to that regard"**

 **"He is the one that took the evidence from the CCPD. All I have left is the folder with the number. Everything else has been confiscated, it was like he was making sure that the police wouldn't be involved in his manhunt"** Barry answered.

 **"Lucky the VA finally digitized their records. Her name is Bette San Souci. She was an explosives expert and a field medic in Afghanistan. She only has one contact that lives in Inglewood"** Cisco spoke after searching the file number. Barry and Caitlin suited up and ran toward the address that Cisco had dug up. They saw a red headed woman coming down from a fire escape in the building and they both ran up to her

 **"Bette San Souci?"** she ran in the opposite direction while Barry sighed. He ran back in front of her while Frost stayed behind her to cover any other avenue of escape **"You need to come with us"**

 **"Please don't touch me"** she replied while shoving him aside, then realizing what she did she yelled at him **"Take whatever you are wearing off. Now!"** Barry looked confused at the woman **"HURRY!"** she yelled **"Before you explode"** The Flash took off while Frost was talking to Bette.

 **"Since you told him to run I don't think you wanted to hurt him. Come with us. We can help you understand what happened to you"** Frost spoke toward the redhead

 **"How could you help me understand?"** she asked.

 **"Because it happened to us as well"** Frost added throwing 2 ice daggers as a wall. In the distance an explosion could be heard and Flash was back only in his underwear. He moved back toward them.

 **"Cisco isn't going to be happy about you blowing up his suit"** he added while Caitlin was eyeing him intently, looking at his abs **"Let's go, I need something to wear, it's kind of windy without anything on"** Frost took Bette and ran with her back to STAR Labs, with Barry following her.

 **"Barry, where is my suit?"** Cisco asked with a raised voice

 **"It blew up, dude"** Barry shrugged while putting on a t shirt.

 **"Sorry, my fault"** Bette interjected making Cisco completely shut up for a few seconds looking at the person who just spoke

 **"What do you mean, it blew up?"** Cisco asked again.

 **"I mean it blew up. Funny fact about Ms. San Souci here, she is a metahuman. She doesn't make bombs, anything she touches turns into a bomb. When she touched Barry's shield, the suit blew up"** Caitlin explained to the engineer

 **"A metahuman with the ability to produce spontaneous combustion on tactile contact"** Wells interjected **"Now I understand why General Eiling is so interested in you, simply because with your abilities you would make the perfect saboteur. You don't even have to get explosives with you, just go somewhere, touch it, it explodes and nobody can detect you, because you don't carry actual explosives. Ms. San Souci, you are an asset and he's very protective about his assets, especially someone with the value you just demonstrated"**

 **"Which explains why he took the case from us. He didn't want us to know what she could do"** Joe entered the room **"And ... she's already here. So … human bomb maker, huh?" She nodded "I guess it's another Tuesday in Central City. Anyway, Barry, Caitlin. Can I talk to you two? Alone?"** The two nodded and followed him outside while Cisco was preparing Bette for some tests to understand her condition better.

 **"I thought we had a deal. You had to keep Iris in the dark for her protection. Now she tells me she saw you guys?"** He started.

 **"Not our fault Joe. She is stubborn as all hell. I have talked to her. Barry has talked to her. We even went to her as our superhero egos and told her to stop. She does not know the meaning of the word _No"_** Caitlin responded

 **"This is different. She put her name to the last article she wrote. The one about Flash and Frost"** Joe said visibly angry.

 **"So what do you want us to do?"** Barry asked **"We've already talked to her. Caitlin even threw a few ice daggers at her feet so she could understand she could be dead in seconds. Not only that she didn't even flinch, but that convinced her even more that she has to write about us. She understands the risks. She even told us that herself. She is perfectly aware that a metahuman could be coming after her just to get to us. Yet, she does it anyway. How do you tell someone that doesn't listen that you want her to not do something?"**

 **"I don't know Barry, you think of something"** Joe raised his voice like he was expecting Barry to comply with what he had said

 **"Joe, don't give me that. If you don't have the power to stop her you know for a fact that I don't either. Stop raising your voice for no reason at the person who was trying to keep his promise all along. The last time I told her to stop writing about the streak, do you know what she told me? She told me that I should be a better friend to her and support her in what she wants to do and if I wouldn't support her then she would find someone else that would"** Barry responded to his foster father **"What can you say to that? She doesn't listen to you, she doesn't listen to me, she doesn't listen to Caitlin"**

 **"She doesn't understand the danger of what she's doing"** Joe looked at the two and sighed heavily.

 **"Actually, yes she does. But she is resourceful and stubborn. I doubt anything that either of us here says to her will affect her will to continue writing"** Caitlin explained to Joe. **"You know we want her out of harm's way. Nevertheless, there is nothing we can do, if she walks into danger herself and she puts herself out there. It's her choice"**

 **"Sorry for coming after you guys so hard, if that is indeed the case. Iris is a big girl. If she wants to do something, then I don't think I can stop her. Do me one favor though?"** the old detective asked the two

 **"And what would that be?"** Barry asked.

 **"Keep an eye on her when you`re out there and make sure she doesn't run into trouble?"** Joe pleaded

 **"We always take care of family, Joe. She will be fine, at least with us around"** Barry replied

 **"That is something really stupid she did, didn't she?"** Joe sighed and his shoulders slumped.

 **"We all did stupid things in our lives, Joe. At least Barry and I can keep her safe if she gets into trouble. Which she will, because she's nosy like that, reminds me of a certain detective that would go into a warehouse with a metahuman that multiplies thinking that he can take him on"** Caitlin smiled toward Barry.

 **"Thanks. I'll be sleeping a lot better at night knowing you two can get her out of trouble if she needs it. Later. I need to go back to the precinct"** Joe hugged Barry, shook Caitlin's hand and left.

When the two came back in the Cortex, Cisco was testing Bette's potential energy to create explosives. A reinforced glass had some balls in it that she touched and after a few seconds the balls exploded, as the glass was recording everything.

 **"Guys, this is amazing. The explosions appear to be at the potential of any plastique type explosive. HA! Plastique. Got it first try"** Cisco smiled looking at Bette, but she was not pleased with her new power. She had told the group that she had been to Afghanistan to defuse roadside bombs when one exploded. She was shipped roadside while her gut was full of shrapnel to heal. When she woke up she was like this. She became the person who could create the things she hated.

Barry and Caitlin began physiological tests on her. Each already knowing what to look for. The usual lightning dance as they were running separate complementary tests was nothing surprising for Cisco and Wells. They have seen that before, Bette however was amazed.

 **"Do they do this … often? " She asked.**

 **"They are both scientists and they both have the same knowledge. It's how they do things and they damn good at it at that"** Cisco said, obviously proud of his friends **"I know how to stop you from blowing things up for the moment though"** He got a pair of blue bracelets from his pocket and put them on her turning them on. Then he took her hand and touched his t shirt. Bette tried to pull back but her hand had already touched the fabric.

 **"Get it off, it's going to explode!"** she almost yelled

 **"Really? I think not"** Cisco smirked pointing at his shirt **"Care to try again?"** he smiled. Cisco wasn't the most charming man in the world, but Bette touched his chest again surprised that nothing was happening.

 **"What did you do?"** She asked.

 **"I developed these cuffs a while back. You might have noticed that Frost looks a bit different when she is going out with the Flash rather than when she is here with us?"** the engineer pointed at one of the speedsters.

 **"Yes"** She nodded.

 **"Caitlin, mind coming here for a minute?"** One of the flashes of light stopped in front of them. **"The cuffs are made to work the same way her earrings do"**

 **"I think you already know I have ice powers. You saw me throw the daggers. Right now my earrings are set on suppression. Just like your cuffs. When I turn them off, this happens"** Caitlin steps back turning off the earrings and a familiar blue mist starts to envelop her. A few seconds later, the mist cleared and her form has changed. White hair, steel blue eyes. Bette looks at her not wanting to believe what she had just seen, then Caitlin turns back to her normal self, except this time she put the earrings on cosmetic.

 **"So you have managed to suppress powers?"** she asks with hope in her voice. Barry stops too next to Caitlin.

 **"Cisco managed that. I have some bad news for you. The bomb particulate has fused with you at a molecular level. It cannot be taken out by any form of surgery"** Barry stated bluntly

 **"The technology required to un splice Your DNA from the particulate has not been invented yet"** Caitlin finished.

 **"Well, at least with these cuffs on now I don't have to fear about touching anything and making it explode and I have you guys to thank for that. I really don't know how to repay you for all this"** Bette was almost crying. It was obvious that the fact she could touch anything again without making it explode was making her very happy.

 **"Well, you could stay and help, you know, be part of the team"** Caitlin suddenly spoke. **"Both Barry and I are medical professionals, but if we both get taken out, we have nobody to even remotely take care of us. You being a field medic can come in handy"**

 **"You already are a bomb expert, we can get you a job with the CCPD, since you have high honors with the military. We can arrange for an honorable discharge because of your wounds and maybe start a new life without fearing you'll blow everything up. Including yourself. Who knows, maybe you'll learn to direct your powers and use them at will. Not just hold something and make it go boom"** Barry continued Caitlin's thoughts.

 **"Mr. Allen, Dr. Snow. As much as I would agree with you. You do understand she is still an asset. General Eiling will not let this pass, as long as he knows that she is in this city he will try to get her back"** Wells didn't want to state the obvious, but he had to .

 **"I think it's high time General Eiling met Flash and Frost. Don't you, Cait?"** Barry said with a dark glance in his eyes

 **"You want to … threaten him, to stop going after Bette?"** Cait asked, guessing what he wanted to do.

 **"Oh, no my dear. Not threaten him, just … convince him, peacefully"** He had a smirk on his face **"We know he's the head of that operation. The soldiers don't have any blame in this. They are just following orders. We should take some tranquilizer, so we don't have to hurt them going in. With our speed it won't be hard to put them all to sleep"** Barry added. Bette was surprised to hear this from a civilian. Usually if someone blamed the army they blamed the whole army, not just the one that was giving the orders.

 **"I'm in"** Caitlin grinned. **"I don't want people thinking metahumans are guinea pigs to be experimented on and I won't hurt good men that are just following orders. Even if those are orders given by a nutcase like Eiling"** Again Bette was surprised at her. They have known her only for a little while and still, they were going to threaten a general to get off her back. That actually made her smile. Something she had not done in a long time, ever since she blew up her cat when she tried to pet her.

 **"Dr. Wells. Any idea where the good general might be hiding now?"** Barry turned to his mentor that had already guessed his intentions and he was frantically searching something on the consoles.

 **"Yes. He is back at his army base, trying to find Ms. San Souci"** He pointed at a place on his map.

In a second they were both gone. They arrived at the base half an hour later going straight for the general's office. Using the tranquilizer that they had borrowed from STAR, they incapacitated all the soldiers in the building and took out the power and the cameras. This was done in less than a minute. General Eiling was in his office with his weapon at the ready trained on the door, when a flash of light came in and he fired. He felt something pushing him in the chair as the Flash sat in the doorway with his gun in his hand. Frost came and stood next to him, dropping the bullets he had just fired to the ground.

 **"Good evening, general"** the Flash spoke **"I heard you were looking for a friend of ours. Ms. San Souci?"**

 **"She is an asset of the military, where is she? I need to make sure she is back in our custody"** Eiling said with conviction in his voice.

 **"No, you don't need to retrieve anything. We came here for that precise reason. We would cordially request that you keep your hands off Ms. San Souci for … well ... as long as you work for the military. Furthermore, we don't want to see you in Central City for as long as we`re there"** Frost continued

 **"Who are you to tell me what to do and why do you think I will ever stop looking for her?"** Eiling said with rage in his eyes as Frost answered him

 **"That's simple general. Flash? "**

 **"We have been through your files and made copies of all the experiments you did here. Stuff that, if it would be handed over to any military court, would have you probably executed for treason. Oh and … did we mention we could simply make you … disappear? I wonder how those undiscovered islands in the Bermudas are this time of year, maybe you could find out for us"** the Flash made his point with his metallic voice. Frost then took over from her partner

 **"You see, we do not enjoy people that experiment on other people. Being metahuman or not, this is not the island of doctor Moreau, general, but try to cross us and you might just feel what it is to live on an island somewhere far, far away, where nobody would even think of looking for you. Do we make ourselves clear?"** Eiling was shocked. In a few seconds, they had him with the files. There was no way now to back out if he wanted to continue his work, he had to give in.

 **"Fine. I will stop going after Ms. San Souci. But how do you know you will not release those files anyway to the public"** he raised his hands in surrender.

 **"Because we are heroes, general. We keep our word. Unlike other people " the Flash answered his question**

 **"Good night, general. I suggest you go home and sleep. All of the soldiers in the building aren't harmed and should wake up in 20 minutes or so. Thank you for your understanding"** Frost gave the general a grin as they both sped out of the base. The two could look pretty menacing and considering they didn't hurt anyone but they did threaten Eiling, they thought the outcome of their little power play would be very positive. They ran back to STAR as fast as they could.

 **"It is done. General Eiling will no longer be an issue"** Barry said as he got out of his suit in the Cortex.

 **"You, you didn't kill him ... right?"** Bette asked. Even though she wanted him dead at some points in her life.

 **"Of course not, we are heroes, we don't kill people, we just … reasoned with him and we might have stolen some of his files"** Caitlin grinned as her form returned to normal

 **"What do you mean ... stolen some of his files?"** Wells asked being extremely interested about what the two speedsters did.

 **"Eiling was doing some pretty … bad human experiments in that base. We just took those files so ... if he ever comes after Bette, we release them to the public. If it will come to that, then we won't have to kill him. JAG will send him to the gas chamber directly** " Barry added.

 **"So what will it be, Bette. Staying or going?"** Cisco asked with a rather hopeful face.

 **"I guess I will be staying"** she smiled making the engineer light up.

 **"Welcome to the team, Ms. San Souci"** Harrison Wells extended an arm which she shook

 **"How about we go out for a drink and celebrate the new addition to the STAR Labs superhero brigade?"** Cisco beamed **"I'm buying"**

 **"I can't come, I have some work to do. But you should definitely go out and celebrate"** Wells politely refused.

 **"We can't get drunk Cisco, remember?"** Barry said with a bit of a frown then he saw Caitlin smiling

 **"Actually, I thought we might need to celebrate one time or another, so I've been working on a type of alcohol that will work on us. It is strong enough and should last in our system the time it needs to give us a buzz. Nevertheless, I had to test it on myself to see if it works. We can get drunk if we want Barry. Or at least ... buzzed"** the doctor replied with a smirk.

 **"That's why the other day you looked a bit drunk when you came to my lab"** Cisco laughed.

 **"Yep. Let's go. I'll take a few vials of the special booze for us and you can buy Bette drinks, Cisco, since it was obvious that's what you've been wanting to do all day"** Caitlin smirked at Cisco making him blush a bit. They all got dressed and went to their usual bar, they got a table in a corner with Caitlin sitting next to Barry and Bette next to Cisco. The engineer ordered drinks for himself and Bette while Caitlin and Barry had 3 vials of **"Killer Flash"** as Caitlin nicknamed the strong booze.

 **"To your new life"** Cisco made a toast as they all raised their respective drinks **"Hopefully it will be better than being Eiling's lab rat"**

 **"To you guys. The persons that showed me I can live with these powers and even enjoy myself. Hopefully I can help you in some way in saving this city, or help other people the way you have helped me"** Bette said herself. They toasted and they all chugged their drinks. Cisco made a real face tasting the shot of tequila, Bette was trying to tough it out as she smiled. Barry and Caitlin just started to cough.

 **"Whoa, that's … some good stuff. Strong too"** Barry commented feeling the buzz of the alcohol in his system.

 **"Yep, that's some *hic* pretty strong stuff there"** Caitlin replied. They continued to talk and make plans, after about 5 minutes the buzz disappeared, but Barry and Caitlin had their hands intertwined under the table. He knew it. She knew it, but none of them pulled away, it was like it was something normal to them.

Meanwhile back at the West Residence, Joe took all the files that the CCPD had on Nora Allen's murder back with him, he sprawled them all over the coffee table in the living room and started Going through them. He had contacted Harrison Wells to ask for help with the case and at the moment he was just gathering his thoughts.

At first he thought that the head of STAR Labs was involved, but after a few talks with him on the side as well as finding out that his fiancée died in a car accident, coupled with the fact Wells made it clear that at the time of Nora's murder the particle accelerator was nothing more than a sketch on a piece of paper, his suspicions of the good doctor were subsiding. Suddenly the power went out, and an unfamiliar flash of red was moving across the room . In the lightning there was a man in a yellow suit, with red glowing eyes.

After a few seconds the blur disappeared, but so did all his files. On the wall, the pin up board had a message on it. **"Stop, or else"** above a picture of Iris with a knife going through it. Joe was scared out of his mind, he sat there paralyzed looking at the scribbling on the board, not knowing how to react.


	12. Outage

As usual like most morning before anyone was in for work, Harrison Wells decided to pay a visit to the Gideon Room to log his progress. He had been doing this for a long while, but more frequently ever since Barry and Caitlin became speedsters.

 **"Good morning, Doctor Wells"** the Ai greeted him as he entered the room.

 **"One would only hope, Gideon. Bring up my log would you?"** Wells told the AI

 **"Certainly, Doctor"**

 **"New Entry. It's been 311 days since the subjects have discovered their speed. Dr. Snow has begun using her speed normally in the lab, while Mr. Allen has started to use his extraordinary Gift, for ordinary problems. His emotional attachments to the persons in his life keep him back from achieving his true potential while the emotional trauma that seems to be locked inside Dr. Snow keeps a barrier between her and her amazing abilities. The desire to be a hero is impeding them from realizing the full scope of their powers. But, there is still time, as the future continues to remain intact. End log"**

 **"Log Saved"** the AI marked . The good doctor sat back in his chair and got out of the room closing everything behind him. He had started work on some projects that he did not share with the others and was entrenched in them for quite a while until he realized that, while being in the Cortex with Caitlin and Cisco, there was an actual person missing.

 **"Barry's late"** Wells scoffed while looking at some monitors.

 **"Of course he's late. It's like it's his signature move. Fastest man alive, yet always late"** Caitlin replied. They immediately sensed a gust of wind and Barry was there with his coffee while handing one out to Caitlin as well.

 **"Thank you. So I'm guessing you're late because you stopped by Jitters and there was a line?"** she continued

 **"Actually, no … someone tried to stick me up"** Barry smirked

 **"Wait, you mean to say, someone actually tried to stick up The Flash?"** Cisco's face fell.

 **"Obviously not. I was coming out of Jitters at normal speed and the suit never left STAR. Someone tried to stick me up, Barry Allen"** He replied with a comical look on his face.

 **"That is like winning the Olympics of bad luck"** the engineer started to laugh prompting a smile from Caitlin.

 **"Barry, I thought we had an understanding. We help you with saving people, and you help us with the progress in medical research we can have off your amazing abilities. I suggest you take that more seriously"** Wells spoke with a quite pissed tone in his voice. Prompting Barry only to nod. His phone and Caitlin's suddenly chimed.

 **"We have to go. There's been an accident, we have to examine the crime scene"** Barry told Cisco and Wells. He grabbed his CSI kit and he and Caitlin sped out the door. In a moment of inspiration Cisco had managed to find a treatment for their shoes that would allow them not to catch fire when they ran. Caitlin was the most pleased with this development. She did not want her entire paycheck wasted on footwear, seeing that a normal 30 second run could ruin anything from stilettos to sneakers. They arrived at the crime scene early for a change. Barry started looking around while Caitlin opened the body bag to find the black charred remains of a human inside.

 **"Good morning, Caitlin"** Joe greeted coming up behind her with Eddie.

 **"Good morning, Joe, Eddie"** she greeted in return **"I hope you haven't had your breakfast yet"** she continued while taking pictures of the body's surroundings.

 **"Hello, Caitlin. I see you are becoming a regular at crime scenes"** Eddie noticed **"But Barry on the other hand has not been late in quite a bit. What the hell can do that?"** he pointed at the charred corpse.

 **"About 2400 degrees, give or take, also about 200 kV. I thought I'd lend a hand for the work to go faster. Especially since Mr. Allen is always late"** Caitlin smiled at the two detectives.

 **"Come on, Cait. I'm not always late. You know I can be where I want to … in a flash"** Barry responded prompting a chuckle from Joe **"Can you guys move a bit? Cait, I'm going to need the camera"**

 **"What do you see?"** they all asked while Caitlin hands him the camera.

 **"See those marks around the body? They look like scorch marks from electrical arcs"** Barry took some pictures while motioning for them to move so he could get the damage into the shots.

 **"This place is filled with combustibles, How come nothing blew up? The arcs seem centralized on the person"** Joe asked.

 **"We don't know. We might have a clue if we find out who this person is first"** Caitlin said bluntly, replying to the detective's question.

 **"How can you find out who this person is, he's a charcoal briquette"** Eddie was curious.

 **"We have some software back at STAR that might help"** Barry climbed back down and arranged everything back in his kit. Then he dragged Joe to the side as Caitlin went around the crime scene one more time to make sure that they did not miss anything.

 **"You all right? You have been off all morning"** Barry asks his adoptive father.

 **"Yea, I'm fine. Just some trouble sleeping that's all"** Joe lied

 **"Ok. Cait? Did we miss anything?"** He turned toward his partner.

 **"No. We're good to go"** she replied coming over to them

 **"We'll analyze this evidence and I'll call you if we find out anything. All right?"** the young CSI asked Joe

 **"Ok"** He replied but his sight was staring out into nothing. The two speedsters moved out of sight and started running toward STAR. Caitlin could see that something was bothering Barry.

 **"What's up with you, you seem to have something on your mind?"** she asked him as they sped through the city.

 **"Something must have happened to Joe. This morning he was totally out of it, like he didn't really care about being at the Crime scene. I don't know how to explain it, but I'm pretty sure something bad happened to him and now he won't say what it is"** Barry replied to his partner.

 **"Do you at least have a clue what that might be? I mean could he have gotten a threat? Or maybe some sort of warning from someone, Iris might have been threatened as well. As far as I've seen Joe almost never acts distraught when his work in involved. Whatever has happened must be really important or really frightening"** Caitlin managed to make a pretty good analysis of the situation

 **"I really don't know, Cait. He avoided the question, even coming from me. Which means he wants to keep it under wraps. I guess we will find out at some point, if he ever decides to come clean with us"** The speedster replied and the two hurried their pace toward STAR.

 **"The burns were too severe on that corpse and the electrical charge was targeted"** Barry spoke after arriving at the lab and giving Cisco the crime scene photos.

 **"It might be a metahuman that can control electricity"** Caitlin chimed in.

 **"I don't know, but the electrostatic discharge required has to be massive in order to create that sort of tissue damage"** Wells interjected in the discussion.

 **"According to the software, there is an 83% chance your corpse looked like this. The DMV has him listed as Casey Donahue. No wife. No kids. Used to work at the Petersburg Electricity Substation"** the engineer spoke after a few minutes running a program that had been used in archeology to reconstitute ancient faces **"That's weird. His pass was just used to enter that substation"**

 **"And its power grid is losing massive amounts of energy. Be careful"** Wells yelled toward the two as they flashed out of the room.

As they both arrived at the substation, they could see a man syphoning up energy from the wires. Before they knew what hit them, the man threw lightning at both of them but instead of electrocuting them, it began syphoning energy from their bodies. The Flash seemed severely affected and Frost barely managed to hit him with an ice blast to stun him. As they both ran away, Barry suddenly started panting

 **"Flash, what's wrong? We need to move"** Frost spoke to him with a sense of urgency

 **"Frost, I can't run. It's like I have lost my speed"** She didn't think twice. She grabbed him and ran straight to STAR Labs where she collapsed in the middle of the room along with him, panting.

 **"I think it's happening to me too. God, I'm cold"** Caitlin started to shiver. Barry took out his bracer and set the earrings on suppression mode and Caitlin calmed down almost immediately.

 **"How is that? Feeling better?"** the speedster spoke to her

 **"What did you do?"** she asked.

 **"Suppression mode on your earrings. Your powers feed off the energy in your cells. If that energy is gone, then you might need to find energy in other places to keep you warm. So I just turned off your powers for the time being. You sure you`re ok?"** he explained

 **"Yes. Thanks. I feel warmer now"** She smiled helping him up **"I must have burned the last of my speed while running here. When we fell I felt like my legs were made of jelly"**

After a bit of time given to them by Wells to rest they went back to the treadmill and discovered that neither Barry nor Caitlin could run fast. Cisco observed that they were even slower than a normal human could actually run, which was not surprising because they were people that almost never exercised before they got their powers.

 **"I don't get it. The particle accelerator modified our cells. How can someone steal our speed. In my case if he was a power stealer, he would have stolen my ice powers as well"** Caitlin panted while stepping off the treadmill.

 **"I think this metahuman isn't stealing anything or electrocuting people. He's syphoning electrical energy. The same kind of electrical energy you have in your cells that give you your power. You have lost your speed because, for lack of a better comparison, your cells are exhausted"** Wells said

 **"Which explains why Cait still has her Ice powers. Those powers feed off the speed energy, but they are not given to her by it"** Barry got off the treadmill **"Do we have any idea if this is temporary or … permanent?"**

 **"No idea as of yet, Mr. Allen. We will have to run tests, but if my initial assessment was correct, no, it's not permanent and they will probably recover with time. That however is an assumption and as you well know, I would rather base my theories on evidence"** Wells went out of the room. Barry picked up his phone and warned Joe that he was out of powers. The metahuman they were dealing with was very powerful and his officers were at risk, and went to the cortex with Caitlin to help with the tests.

 **"Don't worry. We will find a way to give you both your speed back"** the crippled doctor assured them **"I need to get something from my lab. I'll be right back"** Harrison wells went down a couple of floors and straight to the Gideon Room. As he went in, he got out of his chair

 **"Gideon, show me the future".** As the newspaper page appeared, Wells was shocked. The page contained nothing about the Flash anymore, nothing about Palmer Technologies merging with Wayne Corp. Just a sad story about some postal workers.

 **"Gideon, search any references about the Flash"** the desperation in his voice seemed obvious

 **"0 references"** the AI responded simply

 **"Search any references to Barry Allen"**

 **"0 references"** the answer came again.

 **"Any references toward Frost or Dr. Caitlin Snow"**

 **"0 references"**

 **"Search AGAIN"** Wells shouted.

 **"I have, Dr. Wells. 3874 times. There are 0 references to any of the search terms aforementioned"**

 **"Gideon, hypothesize about the lack of references toward our speedsters"** Wells asked the AI

 **"Possible Cause. Flash and Frost will die before the date of this paper"** Gideon replied with the best analysis the data she had could come up with. Wells stood there and thought about something to help the two. IF power is all they needed, maybe an electrical current strong enough might charge up their cells. He had thought about this in order to recharge his own cells, but that didn't work for him since he was already losing his speed as time passed. However, the fact that the two were still primed, but were just missing the energy, led him to go with that idea in the hopes that the two will survive and the future will be preserved.

Back in the Cortex, Caitlin could feel the sadness coming off Barry. He was standing on front of the glass case that contained their suits and seemed pensive. He felt her coming behind him.

 **"Do you ever thing I'll wear it again?"** he asked looking at it

 **"I hope so. I don't think I'll wear mine again either, if this is permanent"** Caitlin responded.

 **"Why Cait, you don't need me. You are a superhero in your own right. Me without my speed… I'm useless"** the speedster told her

 **"Barry, you are not useless"** She came closer and took his hand

 **"It's like a part of me is missing, Cait. I've been so used to being the Flash that I don't know how to be without it"** he replied with a large sigh

 **"Even without your powers, you are still you. The same Barry Allen that spent 6 months trying to help a stranger come out of a coma. The same Barry Allen that became a CSI for his dad and stayed a CSI so he could help people. You are a good person. Do not think that without your speed you are less important than you were. You are very important to me"** Caitlin looked at him

 **"Thank you for that, Cait. I needed a swift kick in the butt. Just never thought it would come from you. I'm glad that you`re here"** He took her hand and kissed it. Caitlin felt a heat radiating from his lips. It moved up from her hand and turned into a fire that engulfed her, making her blush profusely **"But why would you not be a super hero without me?"**

 **"Barry, my cells don't have from where to absorb the energy required for my powers. I am afraid to use them, what if I turn into some … heat vampire and have to kill people to use them. I would rather we continue doing good even as normal people. Besides"** she winked at him **"I would think superhero work kind of dull without my goofy partner around to get us into trouble"**

Suddenly Barry felt a pain and a sudden onset of vertigo hit him like a truck. He wobbled on his feet as images came into his head. He saw Killer Frost sucking the life out of a person completely freezing them. Caitlin arguing with him in the Cortex and telling him that he's not Ronnie and that he will not treat him as such, Bette going to kill general Eiling after a talk with Wells and her dying while he had to run over water to deposit her body in the ocean. The massive explosion after she died and the cover up that Eiling orchestrated. He saw Iris in bed with Eddie. A picture in a white room. And something that was the most surprising. He saw Harrison Wells stand up in the same white room, looking at a holographic newspaper. While the images subsided in his head and he recovered his bearings he noticed that Caitlin was hugging him tight keeping him from falling.

 **"Barry, hey, you all right?"** she asked with a real worried look on her face.

 **"Yeah, I'm fine. Must be some side effect from attack"** he lied as to not tell her about the flashes. He wanted to keep them to himself, for now. The things he saw were wild, even for him.

 **"Come on, lie down. I'll give you a once over"** He kept him straight walking over to the bed helping him not to fall down. The pain was obvious on his face. His vitals were elevated and his pupils were dilated. There was nothing she could do, except take a seat and sit near him. Letting him rest. It was like the energy drain actually tired him out as well.

 **"Rest. You need some time. It will help you with your headache and vertigo as well"** she told him with a stern voice

 **"Cait"** he managed to say with a low voice. **"Thank you for being here. You are a very important person to me too"** She remained with him as he fell asleep. She was looking over the vitals on the monitors and saw that his pulse was still very elevated compared to a normal human. She took a hair sample, checked his cells and saw that where at first they were brimming with energy, now they had the same circle shaped holes in them.

 ** _"He is right. I didn't want to tell him, but he is the most important person in my life right now. Someone I can talk to, that knows my fears and problems. I know he'll be there when I need him as I will for him. Maybe that is what a partner is. Maybe that is what love is supposed to be"_** She made wide eyes realizing what she had said **" _Love"_** Something that she had long forgotten, ever since her last boyfriend died, she was guarded, closed, never permitting herself to get close to anyone and yet Barry had managed to do precisely that in the shortest time possible. With him she had gotten used to smiling, laughing, joking and much more. If you can call 6 months of coma short, in which night after night they spent more time together than she had had with any of her previous relationships. The time since their awakening, they have spent almost all the time they were awake together. Saving the city, working cases for the police department, just getting coffee at Jitters, or when one of them had a bad night and they wanted to go out running, they were always together. Even in her own environment at STAR, he would help her with research, now that they shared knowledge. It was more like a ritual for both of them. She would help him get up to speed on cases and then he would help her work faster on whatever research needed to be done, The days were never the same. Some days they would spend more time working on cases, other times most of the day was spent at STAR digging up information on metahumans, or just trying to decipher the mysteries of the powers that they had been given.

Holding his hand now seemed normal for her and every night at home when she went to sleep she managed to figure out what was missing. His hand, she had no idea how, because people in comas aren't supposed to feel physical contact, but she wasn't feeling that. She was feeling the lack of it. **" _Maybe I didn't want to see the signs before"_** she smiled to herself. **" _Barry Allen, I think I'm falling in love with you"_** She said it and she knew it was true. Barry got up after a short nap seeing Caitlin in a chair next to him.

 **"I think I'm fine now"** he smiled toward her

 **"Good, I was pretty worried about the sudden onset of that migraine and the vertigo. I thought something happened when the Meta attacked you"** she replied

 **"Farooq Gibran"** Cisco came into the medical bay holding a tablet.

 **"Who?"** they both asked

 **"The power vampire that jacked your speed. I hacked into the camera at the power substation and got his face off the footage. He was easy to find after that"** Cisco explained

 **"It says here that the night of the accelerator explosion he climbed an electric pole"** Caitlin read from the tablet

 **"Which explains where he got his powers"** Barry stood up from the bed as the alarms started to blare. Cisco went at the main consoles and brought up the camera for the main entrance.

 **"Oh, you have got to be kidding me. He's here. This is not good"**

 **"Harrison Wells. I know you`re in there. Come out. I want to talk to you"** he was yelling. When he saw that he was being ignored, a bolt of lightning came out of his hand and hit the power transformer that was on the side of the building and ripped the wires out of it draining all the energy from the building and short circuiting the entire city grid. This gave him a major jolt of power which allowed him to Melt through the front door and enter the building. Barry called the precinct only to find out from Captain Singh that the building was under lockdown. There was a hostage situation and Joe and Iris were inside.

 **"I have a theory"** Harrison Wells explained **"Of course, it's untested. Much like most of the things we theorize about you two"**

 **"I'm willing to roll the dice, if you are Cait"** Barry spoke swiftly

 **"Yes. Everyone is in danger now. We need or powers back ASAP"** she added.

 **"You have lost your speed. Yes. But, nothing has changed inside of you on a subatomic level. Your DNA is unchanged which means your cells are still primed. All we have to do …"**

 **"Is give them a jump start. We need to replicate the initial jolt to your systems"** Cisco realized what he was saying. **"But where are we going to get 20000 K Amps with our power gone?"**

 **"Let's just hope we don't fry. That is more power than they put through people at an execution"** Caitlin added.

 **"The spare generator is offline. If we reboot it, we could get a charge that big. Right Cisco?"** Wells asked the genius engineer

 **"Theoretically, yes. But we would need something to transfer the load from the generator to Barry and Caitlin's bodies. Which my treadmill can do. My baby can hold the charge"**

 **"What if we can't?"** Caitlin asked visibly concerned.

 **"It is up to you if you want to try"** Wells voiced.

 **"Well, if we are going to go out, at least well go out in a blaze of glory"** Barry smiled trying to lighten the situation **"Or in a puff of smoke, as the case might be"**

 **"Barry… that is not funny, but you`re right. With Farooq in the building this place is a death trap and if he catches us then we're dead anyway"** Caitlin spoke. She had no idea if her ice powers would even work on the man now that he had got such a powerful boost of energy.

 **"Maybe I should try to talk to him. You didn't see him at the substation, we woke up as having super powers but him … he woke up with a disease"** Barry tried to reason with his team only to be cut off

 **"This morning you were at a crime scene where this metahuman FRIED an innocent man. HE IS A MURDERER"** Wells shouted at him

 **"You have no way to protect yourself from him. I do not want to lose anyone else I care about in this building. You aren't going and that's final"** Caitlin hissed at him. He realized what she said and stopped in his tracks, letting his idea to talk to him go.

 **"You two get to the treadmill. Cisco, you keep in contact with them. Reboot the generator and flip the interconnect switch when they are ready"** Wells gave the order while the two were already out of the room.

 **"What? You`re not coming with me? I am not leaving you alone** " the engineer told Wells

 **"Listen to me. Out of everything I have done in my life, out of everything I have invented, my most important inventions are Flash and Frost. Barry Allen and Caitlin Snow must have a future. NOW GO!"** he yelled. Caitlin and Barry ran to the treadmill room and started connecting wires to the treadmill.

 **"Don't worry. When Dr. Wells has a theory he's usually right"** Caitlin tried to put his mind at ease.

 **"What if something happens to us first? What if something happens to Joe and Iris"** while they were talking they saw Farooq outside the room. He was looking for them. They hid until they would get the ok from Cisco. Little did they know that Wells had let out Tony Woodward or **"girder"** as Cisco nicknamed him telling him to kill Farooq and he will set him free. He was one of the metahumans they had captured early on in their adventure that could turn himself to steel. He was also Barry Allen's childhood Bully. Farooq saw him and moved to intercept him leaving the two with the room clear. At that moment the lights came back on and a voice spoke softly through their comms.

 **"Caitlin, Barry. Whenever you`re ready"** the engineer told them

 **"This might kill us"** She said

 **"I know. At least if we die, we die together. Partners?"** Barry asked. Holding up his hand.

 **"Partners"** Caitlin answered taking his hand his fingers intertwining with hers as they stepped on the treadmill and put their hands on the bar.

 **"Hit it, Cisco"** A shock hit them with the violence of a train. They both flew and hit the wall on the other side of the room.

 **"God, that's going to hurt in the morning"** Barry commented as he saw that one of his hands was vibrating and then coming to a halt **"It didn't work. Not for me at least. How about you?"** Caitlin was zipping across the room

 **"I think it worked. It feels like I have more power than ever now"** she said excited while removing the suppression mode on her earrings and turning into Frost. Nevertheless, their happiness didn't last long, as she zipped out of the room she was met with a lightning bolt which threw her across the room. Farooq was waiting, he managed to severely wound Girder and now he was coming back after the two.

 **"Come out come out wherever you are"** he said in a grim tone as Barry moved toward the exit slowly **"Fine then. I guess your girlfriend will get roasted"** Farooq charged up and threw two supersized bolts of lightning at Frost, who was just beginning to wake up.

At that precise moment, Barry could see the lightning stand still. His pupils dilated, his heart started to race, the muscles in his legs contracted and lightning sparked through his eyes as never before. He ran managing to reach Frost in time but he took the lightning straight in the chest. Farooq started to drain his power again. However, this time it was different. He felt a hand in his and suddenly the blue flash of light that was draining away his power turned bright orange. Caitlin was wincing in pain, but she was with him, from her he could see emanating the most beautiful silver blue lightning going into the rogue metahuman.

He could not drain their powers. As he tried, the power got too much for him, his face turned red and he fell down on the floor, motionless as the two super heroes were panting and beads of sweat were running down their face.

 **"It's over"** he sighed.

 **"Yeah, it is"** she smiled at him **"And we didn't die either, which is good"** They both rushed to the Cortex only to find Girder dead on the corridor outside their room, blood coming out of his mouth and ears.

 **"Wells let him out, but why?"** Barry asked

 **"He was the distraction"** Caitlin realized with a dark look on her face. **"He was the one that gave us time to put our plan into action"**

 **"Let's go. We need to get to the precinct"** It was like the world was moving even slower than before. They ran faster than they had ever ran and Caitlin was keeping up with Barry even though her Ice powers were in full swing. The situation at the precinct was nothing hard to fix. There was just one guy, that was holding everyone prisoner. Barry took a look at the floor and realized that Eddie was bleeding out while the man sarcastically laughed above him. In an instant, the man was restrained and knocked out. Even put in an ice cocoon courtesy of Frost, as Barry ran out with Eddie in his arms putting him in the nearest hospital.

 **"Where were you?"** Iris asked Frost through her tears.

 **"Metahuman attack at STAR Labs. Hostage situation had to make sure that we handled it correctly"** Frost muttered and Iris saw the large scorch mark on her suit and stopped asking questions. It was clear that she was hurt and yet she still came to help.

 **"Is everyone all right there?"** Joe asked Frost.

 **"Anyone in particular you need to know about?"** she inquired herself

 **"Barry Allen, Caitlin Snow and Cisco Ramon"** the detective asked.

 **"Yes, they are all fine. We managed to stop the metahuman before he had hurt anyone, even if I had to take a shock to the chest for that to happen. Those things sting"** Frost responded. Even though Joe knew who they were, he was still asking them if they were ok.

 **"Detective Thawne will be all right"** Iris saw the Flash coming back and untying everyone as the police lead by Captain Singh was coming in the building **"I took the liberty to inform the captain that the coast was clear"**

 **"Are you sure he'll be ok?"** Iris asked

 **"Yes, he just lost a lot of blood. The wound isn't fatal. A transfusion and some cleaning up and he will be as good as new"** the Flash assured her.

 **"Thank you"** Joe mouthed at the two with his lips. They both nodded as they flashed out of the precinct and back to STAR. Barry had a bone to pick with Harrison Wells. They found him in the Cortex.

 **"Why did you let Girder out from the pipeline?"**

 **"Because we needed a distraction"** He answered bluntly

 **"Do you not really care about people ? He died out there"** Barry just blurted out the question with a touch of anger in his voice.

 **"Look, Barry, there is a reason my autobiography describes me as … arrogant, prickly, brisk, at times even contemptuous. It is because I do not care much about people. I find them misinformed, shortsighted, sometimes I would go as far as to call them stupid and with a distinct lack of vision of the future"** Wells smiled

 **"So why do you do what you do? Why get up in the morning? Everything we've ever talked about was you trying to do good. Why do that, if you don't care?"** Barry was frustrated to no end

 **"Because I believe in a better future. One that I very much want to see. One that you two are a part of. I might not care much about people. But I do care about you and Caitlin and I will do anything I can to keep you safe, even if some people have to die"** The words that came out of Well's mouth stopped Barry in his tracks. He had not thought like that. What Wells did was for him and Caitlin, so they could survive. They took Girder's body and Farooq's back to the pipeline and when they returned, Caitlin had some good news.

 **"Barry I think for once we stopped worrying about our powers and just connected with them. The amount of energy our cells produce now is far higher than what it was before. It explains why the metahuman couldn't drain us. You could say, he literally choked on us"** Caitlin chuckles as she said that.

 **"What does that actually mean?"** Barry asked, surprised.

 **"It means that you kicked it up a notch"** Wells responded **"You should take a break. Go home. Relax. I'll see you both tomorrow. Great work. All of you"**

 **"Want to go grab a bite to eat? I'm famished"** Barry turned toward Caitlin and Cisco

 **"You know I'm in"** she smiled **"I thought I would be getting fat, but nope. I'm just hungry"**

 **"Let's get out of here"** Cisco quipped as the trio walked out the door of the Cortex.

After going back to the pipeline to grab a sample of Farooq's blood for study, seeing as the metahuman could steal the energy of a speedster, Dr. Harrison Wells returned to his secret room to store it.

 **"Good day, Dr. Wells"**

 **"Yes it is, Gideon. Bring up my log would you? New entry. It is now been 312 days since lightning struck. In the last 24 hours, subjects have taken a great leap forward. Causing me to revise my thesis. I thought their attachment to people was a distraction slowing down their progress. Now I realize the opposite is true. That attachment is the way to get them both up to speed. In the meantime, the future remains intact. I think it is time I step up my game plan and pay someone a visit"** The picture on the screen now read.

 **Flash and Frost disappear**

 **Search Continues**

 **By Iris West-Thawne**

Barry came home from the outing with his friends. He was extremely tired, but when he got in bed, he suddenly started to remember the flashes that he had earlier that day. **" _More strange images. The last that I saw some turned out to be true. Like Iris dating Eddie. Some turned out to be false"_**

The first image that haunted Barry was the image of Harrison Wells standing in the white room looking at a holographic paper. The image was too blurry to read what it said, but the fact that in his vision Wells had the chair behind him and he was standing up made him wonder if the good Doctor was actually not as paralyzed as he thought.

The other image that constantly reappeared in his head was the one where Killer Frost was killing someone and the one about Harrison Wells walking, he thought at some point that the good doctor might be able to stand somehow, but him walking would mean that he had complete control over his lower half. Those were the most puzzling. He had met Killer Frost, her actually being the identity that her ice powers created in response to Caitlin hiding all her negative feelings.

Barry twisted and turned in bed. He tried to sleep. Nevertheless, in his mind the events of the previous day were going on and on. He was happy he had his speed back, but the moment he regained it was of paramount importance to him now. He was replaying it in his head. Second by second, frame by frame, like a new movie in HD. The lightning, the fear, the anger, the need and finally the power. Then he realized… His powers did not work the moment he stepped off the treadmill, like Caitlin's. His powers kicked into overdrive the moment she saw her in danger. _Her._

Barry opened up his eyes and stood up. Breaking his promise, yet again and risking to get his ass frozen, he went running through the city to clear his head. Inevitably, all his laps lead to one point. Caitlin's apartment, he couldn't bring himself to ring the door. He ran back and went through the city **" _Of course it would be her"_** Barry thought to himself. **" _She is smart, beautiful and funny. Cute when she gets angry and feisty when she knows she's right"_ **He thought about the times he had gawked at Iris and thought about what would his life had been if they were together, but he always knew that it would not happen, so he learned to let it go **" _She has always been there for me when I needed her. Even with all the pain in her life"_**

For the past months, he had spent almost every waking moment with her. Even Oliver and Felicity noticed asking the same question. **" _Do you like her?"_** resonated in his head. He remembered the day that Joe asked him about Iris and he answered with the fact that at the time there was only one person he was thinking about. _Her._ The word moved in his head like an echo, a ghost long passed of a future that might exist. A future where _her_ would be _his._ There was a difference, a large difference between this and what he thought with Iris. He was not willing to let this go. **" _Maybe I was too blind to see it"_** he told himself chuckling at his obliviousness **" _Caitlin Snow, I think I'm falling in love with you"_ **He said it and he knew it was true.

Then it hit him. A red streak was running parallel to his course grinning. He recognized the man without fail. It was the same features that he had seen back when his mother was murdered. Red lightning, yellow suit, red eyes. He moved toward him but the shadow took off at amazing speed racing through the city with the Flash closely behind him. He called Caitlin instantly

 **"I need you. I found the man in the yellow suit"** She closed the call immediately. Why would he appear after all this time, why was he here, what did he want. Suddenly the yellow blur stopped in an alley.

 **"Who are you? What do you want?"** As he finished the blur charged him head first. Prompting them into a battle of speed and punches, The Flash and his enemy were locked in a tight brawl. Frost arrived almost immediately, she got the location from the tracker in his suit. Barry was getting beat up pretty badly, but he managed to set himself free enough that Frost could throw a few icicles at the man in the yellow suit. He dodged running toward her, but before she managed to hit her, he receiver a swift blow to the face courtesy of the Flash who had gotten up and was speeding toward his partner.

 **"We will see each other again, Flash. We are going to be doing this dance for centuries to come"** He rasped in the same metallic voice that he used, clear indication that he was disguising his real voice. In the slowed down time scape that their powers were providing his vibrations were severely slowed, prompting the two superheroes to catch a glimpse of his eyes as he sped out of sight leaving Barry heaving heavily on the ground.

 **"Are you all right?"** she asked helping him up the ground

 **"A little bruised. I got in some pretty heavy punches on that guy"**

 **"As he did on you. Come on lets go back to STAR I need to clean these wounds"** Seeing him tired she just sped off with him and deposited him in the med bay on a bed while she was taking off the top of his suit. Several bruises had already formed including some cuts on his lip and face.

 **"What were you doing out there by yourself? Didn't we agree that if we want to go out for a run we'd call each other? I thought I was pretty clear what I was going to do to you if you do that to me again"** she said angrily looking at him

 **"I saw him from my window, he was just standing there"** he lied **"I just took my suit and ran after him, while I was trying to keep up I called you. I wasn't there by myself, I think it was literally 2 minutes in the chase that I picked up the phone"**

 **"Why not earlier?"** she asked calming down seeing that he had called her quite soon.

 **"I didn't want to lose him. There was no point in calling you if I just lost him, now was there?"** he responded bluntly thinking about it.

 **"True"** She still was not happy that it took him a whole 2 minutes to call, made clear by the especially rough cleaning of his wounds that made him wince one in a while **"That is the man that killed your mother, isn't it?"**

 **"Yes, that is the exact image I recall from that night. A man in a yellow suit with red eyes. But why keep himself hidden for so long? Why come out Tonight of all times?"** Barry looked at her with a face that showed not only shock but confusion as well.

 **"He's playing games. If he wanted to kill you he could have simply come over today while you didn't have your speed and did it then"** she replied finishing up the bandaging

 **"Thanks for the help"** he smiled at her, but in the place of his regular carefree smile she could see that he was quite worried.

 **"Don't worry, we will catch him and he will pay. Count on it"** Caitlin said with an angry tone, sparks dancing all over her eyes. **" _She looks beautiful when she's angry"_** he thought.

 **"What? Do I gave gum in my teeth?"** she asked and then he realized he was staring.

 **"No. no ... it's just. I have never seen you this angry before, even when I screwed up quite badly. The lightning that was dancing in your eyes makes you even more beautiful than normal"** he blurted then immediately admonished himself **" _Barry Allen, you should know when to keep your mouth shut"_**

 **"Um … yeah… you will see me even angrier if you don't take care of yourself"** she mumbled, her face blushing, trying to gently bump away the subject from what he just said.

 **"I will try, Cait, but this is important to me. You know it is"** the speedster replied looking straight into her eyes

 **"This is where you are wrong. It's important to us. I am your partner after all"** she smiled trying to keep herself from blushing even more at the fact that he called her beautiful... again.

 **"Thank you"** That was all he said, but she understood everything that needed to be understood from those two words. They would catch the man who did this to his mother and who destroyed his life. Together, like always.

 **"Always"** she answered


	13. Company

Holidays were approaching and for Caitlin Snow, that was one of the times of the year she would wish that it would go away that much faster. She never had the Christmas spirit in her, nobody actually cared in her family to instill that sort of joy and wonder into her. Her father was always working and after her died, her mother saw it fit to be away on the holidays most of the time leaving a teenage Caitlin alone with her thoughts. The only positive thing that came out of it was the fact that she had the whole house to herself, nobody to annoy her or to call her names or make fun of her, as her mother usually did.

After her father died, the atmosphere in their house changed, her mother buried herself more into her work and after that started dating around. Caitlin didn't see anything wrong with that, except for the fact that she kept bringing guys home forgetting that she wasn't alone in her apartment. That was something that usually annoyed her to no end, but there was nothing she could do about it. She was happy to escape when she went to college, but even then, her shy, quiet self didn't really have people around to enjoy the holidays with.

Cisco knew this, after she started at STAR Labs, the engineer tried his best to get her into the Christmas mood, but for all his hard work, he never managed to. She would still be her polite self as always, even trying her best not to be the awkward person around whatever party Cisco would be attending, but she always failed. By the end, she was always with her tablet in some corner reading. That was her only solace while other people were having fun around her. That was her fun, the thing she always had enjoyed doing. In a way, the engineer felt sorry for her, no matter how much he tried Caitlin seemed to be more into books than people.

Eddie decided to give Iris an early Christmas present, a key to his apartment and asked her to move in with him. That came as a bit of a surprise, but she accepted immediately, much to Barry's dismay, which Caitlin was an unwitting witness to. She was mildly annoyed at the way he reacted to Iris doing her own thing. She didn't quite peg him as being completely over her yet, even though what she saw lasted way less than previous events of the sort. Her moving away did produce one good thing however, Barry decided to stop looking for a place and stay with Joe so he would be able to put aside some money and keep the old detective company. Caitlin was happy that Barry decided to stay in the same how with his foster father, she had seen in him the loneliness she experienced when going back to an empty home and while she did what she could to prevent him from feeling that way while he was with her, she could not do anything about what was going on in his head while alone.

It was the day before Christmas Eve and they were all at STAR, Barry discussing with Cisco about their plans for the holidays and mingling in topics about how they would try to capture the man in the yellow suit. Most of it was all lighthearted fun, but she didn't really participate in anything Christmas related, giving her opinion however on the discussions about the means of capture of the speedster that had killed Barry's mother. The speedster picked up on this really soon, he decided to at least try to get her to enjoy the holidays with everyone else.

 **"So what are you doing for Christmas, Cait?"** Barry asked going over to her and interrupting her from what she was doing.

 **"Nothing, just like any other one. Going home, taking a bath, watching some TV and go to sleep"** She replied coldly. It was obvious to Barry that she didn't enjoy the holiday at all.

 **"Really? I didn't think anyone could make a holiday that boring for themselves"** the speedster looked at her surprised. He was trying to at least get her to talk about it, but she didn't seem to want to say anything.

 **"Barry, you see it like a holiday, for me on the other hand it's just like any other day. If it's boring then it's boring, if it's exciting then it's exciting. I doubt some ornaments and a tree would make any difference"** she responded blandly to his question.

 **"Wow, you really deserve the nickname of "Maiden of Ice", if Christmas does have any sort of meaning for you except for a normal day"** Cisco looked at her with surprise on his face.

 **"I fail to see how that matters so much. This is the part of the year that I would like gone as fast as possible, each year, every year, since I was a child after my father died. I doubt anything will change my opinion now. Cisco has tried that for a while now and he failed. By all means, you can try as well"** She responded with a blank face. Barry was surprised, she had seen her be cold to people but this is the first time that she was like this when a holiday was concerned. Barry's cell phone rang out of nowhere. It was Joe.

 **"We kind of need some assistance. There is a shootout on highway 44. Some idiots clad in armor with guns. We can't take them down, we need help"** They heard him say with sounds of gun fire as his background.

 **"We're on our way. Sit tight and don't get shot. You or Eddie"** Barry closed the line and turned toward Caitlin. **"How about a little garden variety city saving to get a smile on your face, Frost"** he gave her one of her goofy smiles

 **"Let's go"** she replied and on the blank face she exhibited till then, a smile appeared. Barry knew he had caught her with that one, she always enjoyed saving the city alongside him. They both changed into their suits and sped at the site of the shooting. As they arrived they took cover behind the car that Joe was holed up behind. It had seen better days being all full of bullet holes since it had been used for cover.

 **"Here we are. What's the issue with these guys?"** Barry asked his foster father

 **"They tried to rob the Central City Bank. They got away before we could get on the scene but they were stupid enough to grab an armored vehicle as a getaway car. Since those have GPS, we were able to track them and ambush them here. The problem is these seem like professionals, they have large caliber weapons, all sorts of explosives and body armor. We can't hurt them. I think I have personally put at least 5 bullets in one single person without them even flinching"** The detective ducked as another couple of bullets hit the car.

 **"All right. Stay here, we'll take care of them"** Barry replied and the two flashed directly at the people that were shooting. In the dilated timescape, they could easily avoid the bullets that were coming at them. While other bullets didn't work, high speed punches worked just great, the men started flying around as the speedsters hit them while moving between the cars. The impact provided by their velocity combined with the mass that they had was enough to do that. When everyone was down the two speedsters returned to the car where Joe was. As the police was moving in to apprehend them, one of the perpetrators shot a random hail of bullets at our two heroes. It took them completely by surprise, grazing the Flash's arm with one of the shots and Frost taking two bullets herself, one to the back of her left leg and one through the back of her knee. She had heard something, but didn't manage to ice up in time. Both fell down rather quickly, but Flash managed to get up and knock out the man who started to fire with a strong punch to the chin. He was so annoyed that he put too much force in the hit cracking the man's helmet and his jaw in the process.

 **"Well, that's a good start for holiday season"** Frost said wincing and trying to stand, but she realized pretty soon that it was impossible.

 **"Don't try to stand. One of the bullets hit the knee from the back"** Barry took Caitlin in his arms **"I need to go see where she got hit and how bad the damage is. Are you all right here?"** he asked his foster father.

 **"Yeah, go. Take care of her"** the answer came as Joe got out from cover and went to where the police was detaining the shooters. Barry ran like a bat out of hell with a bleeding Caitlin all the way to STAR Labs, deposing her in the medical bay. He called Bette in advance to be there. He knew for a fact that he would need help. He got her under an x ray machine and assessed the damage.

 **"Cait, I am going to need to take your pants off"** he said with a serious face.

 **"Why Barry Allen, I would never thought I would hear that sentence out of you"** she tried to joke, but wincing seriously from the pain. Cisco was holding back a laugh even though she was seriously injured.

 **"Well I can always cut your suit, but those pants are coming off one way or another"** He offered taking a pair of scissors in his hand, making Cisco gasp at the heresy of him wanting to damage his precious creation.

 **"Just take the pants off. Pull the curtains if needed"** She winced as the turned on her belly and Barry got rid of the part of the suit that he wanted to cut.

 **"I'm going to have to go in and take the bullets out. One of them is stuck in your femur which is cracked. The other one hit the back of your knee, but I can't see the damage. You know the drill. I can't give you any sort of painkillers so … this will have to do. Sleep tight, Cait. I'll take care of you"** He grabbed an injector of horse tranquilizer and pushed it against her thigh. She smiled and almost instantly fell asleep. Bette came in the room scrubbed and wearing a surgical gown. He just scrubbed and pulled a scalpel starting to cut.

He managed to get the first bullet out without too much of a hassle avoiding major blood vessels and suturing the ones that were ripped by the bullet. He set the bone as well as he could using dissolvable sutures for the muscles inside and for the skin outside. Her knee was a different issue however. The bullet went through the joint and got stuck in the back of the patella. On the way it managed to partly tear the anterior cruciate ligament. Bette assisted him as well as she could, gawking at how fast the speedster was working, trying to keep up with him and give him the best assistance she could. She had stopped losing that much blood after he took out the thigh bullet and closed it up nicely but this was a problem as well. After about four hours of surgery Barry managed to get second one out and fix the wound on the back of her knee. It was already getting dark outside, the time passing at top speed while the speedster focused on her to get the optimal results after the surgery.

 **"Cisco, get me a large 3d printed cast for her leg. One from top to bottom. She will need to keep it straight for a while"** Barry told the engineer who left in a hurry. Caitlin had some shorts in her locker so the speedster went and put those on her, as a measure of decency.

 **"This should do just fine"** Cisco came back with a full leg cast **"Had no idea her legs were so long"** he stated the obvious when he realized that the cast that Barry had made was pretty big.

 **"Who do you think actually measured them? Well beside me obviously since I had to make those casts"** Barry chuckled and took the construct from the engineer putting Caitlin's leg in it and closing the clamps at the back. They were just in time for the horse tranquilizer to wear off. Barry turned her face up and let her awaken as himself and Bette went to clean up from the surgery. They both came back after about 15 minutes and Caitlin opened her eyes.

 **"How does it look, doctor?"** she gave him a faint smile

 **"Well, you have damage in your ACL, a cracked patella and a hairline fracture in your femur. The last two should heal pretty quickly, but the ligament damage in your knee will take a while. I would venture anywhere from 12 – 24 hours"** Barry told her.

 **"I didn't really have anything planned for holidays so I guess staying in bed is no different. Thanks for the patch up"** she smiled toward him

 **"You do the same for me, day in, day out. No need for thanks. I'm going to go get you some food. The higher your energy is the faster you will heal. I also put the earrings on suppression for the same reason"** Barry looked at her showing her the setting the earrings had on his bracer. She nodded and he flashed away. Bette and Cisco came to keep her company for the time being.

 **"You were right when you said he knows his stuff. I've done battlefield surgery before but the guy's finesse and speed even left me with my jaw on the floor. What made me even more interested is the fact that even if he was working at such a speed that I could barely keep up with his hands, he checked, double checked and triple checked to make sure that he was doing the right thing to ensure you had a speedy recovery. He really wanted you to not spend too much time in a bed"** Bette commented

 **"I know, it's a bit strange, because you know knowledge doesn't really make you good at what you do. In his case that is all he needed. To be honest the fact that he managed to integrate what I know into his own practices from day 1, makes me believe that he might be a genius in disguise. Just don't tell him, it'll go to his head"** Caitlin smiled.

 **"Cisco, what was that about Caitlin having long legs?"** Bette teased the engineer. Caitlin looked at him with a cold glare.

 **"Nothing, I was just looking at the size of those casts. I had to bring one here like I was carrying a pole for construction. That's when I noticed how long they were"** Cisco tried to defend himself. **"I didn't mean anything by that, you two just love to gang up on me"** the two women looked at him sternly and cracked into a laugh. Caitlin noted that her injuries were barely hurting as long as she didn't try to move her leg. Barry flashed back with a pizzas, big belly burgers and a few donuts and everyone started to eat. To make Caitlin's life a little easier he took a large wooden board from god knows where and put it over the bed resembling a table large enough to hold one pizza. While she ate he was keeping an eye on her progress immediately putting another one on the table when she finished. She looked funny, had one boot on, since the one that was on the casted leg had to be taken off, then a pair of shorts and the top from the Frost suit. Barry flashed to her and took off her boot leaving her with a comfortable pair of sneakers and left a hoodie and a shirt on the side of the bed so she could change. She gave him a strange look

 **"What? You think I don't see the way you`re dressed? I know you do or else you wouldn't have had that grimace on your face. Brought you something to get changed so that you don't mix and match to end up looking like a rainbow"** He pulled a blanket over her legs and the drapes.

 **"Thanks. I did look weird there"** she replied while she was changing.

 **"You look beautiful in anything you wear, no matter how hideous you think it is. Still, you`re welcome"** He responded, Caitlin felt herself blush profusely at his blatant and direct way in which he expressed what he thought. She never got used to him giving her compliments and she always reacted with blushing, which she could never seem to control. Bette went back to work and Cisco to his lab. He was fiddling with the metahuman cuffs yet again hoping to make something that would not require as much power as they did now. The two were left in the cortex alone as usual when everyone was around doing other business. They had no idea where Dr. Wells would be, he didn't leave them with any kind of note or a message, he was just gone.

 **"Come on. I'll take you home. It's already late and you don't need to be here. You can be a potato on the couch back at your place"** Barry told her and smiled.

 **"I would, but I don't see any semblance of crutches to help me walk around the house"** he pouted with a face that Barry thought was cute as all hell at the time

 **"I'll take you home get you situated and come back and look for them. Even if I did find a pair now I couldn't take them with me. I only have two hands which will be used to carry the cold, yet beautiful maiden of ice to her home"** He smiled and took her in his arms.

 **"You sound like you`re taking me to a castle or something, Barry"** She started to laugh

 **"It all depends on how you look at it, Cait. Your home is your castle and since your trusty steed is broken"** he pointed to her leg **"then it's up to me and my healthy steeds to get you there"** Barry started to chuckle.

 **"Barry Allen, did you just compare my leg to a horse?"** She tried to feign indignation but failed miserably her face cracking from the time she had said half a sentence

 **"Oh my god no, that would be a mistake, while I do like horses, your legs are way nicer"** He smirked. She had not recovered from the other compliments and now her face felt like it was burning. The cast was holding beautifully seeing that she did not wince once while he sped through the city and into her apartment. He put her down and helped her to get on the couch, brought her a small chair to put her cast on so that she wouldn't be using her muscles and flashed a blanket around her legs so she wouldn't be cold. **"Comfortable?"** he asked

 **"Yes, thank you. Can you see where I put the remote. I'll be a good girl and not try to get up myself"** She smiled adorably at the speedster, which at the time could swear he was going to melt into the tapestry.

 **"Sure"** he flashed around the house and gave her the remote **"Be right back, need to go find those sticks"** He spoke and then left running back toward STAR to search for the crutches she needed. It took him a good 30 minutes to find something that she could use. The labs had all sorts of implements, but somehow they only had one pair of what he was searching for. Barry laughed and the realized the labs were a Scientific venue, not a hospital. He left his suit at the lab and after a few minutes of running, he was back at her apartment with them, depositing the implements near the side of the couch **"Here are your crutches. I had no idea it was so hard to find them in that huge building"** He laughed at her.

 **"Thank you for all the help, Barry. It's fine now. I can take care of myself. You don't really need to keep an eye on me"** she replied while watching a movie, which was apparently pretty boring because since Barry came back all she did was yawn.

 **"You`re dozing off. Must be the injury taking a toll on your energy level. Come on. I'll help you get to bed"** Barry smiled at her and took her once again in his arms **"Your leg should be fine until tomorrow morning, the damage to your knee however might take a little bit more. Keeping your powers suppressed should accelerate your healing"**

 **"But I don't want to go to sleep"** she pouted at the same time giving him a large yawn.

 **"No discussions, princess. You need to rest. Doctor's orders"** the speedster flashed her in her bedroom and put her to bed making sure that she wasn't cold and she was tucked in. Her face turned crimson realizing at what he had called her, but he decided to ignore it for her own good.

 **"I give up since you`re pulling rank on me. I wish it would work on you, but it rarely does. I'm going to bed"** She sleepily smiled at him **"So this is how it feels like to have someone take care of you, huh?"** she managed to ask.

 **"Pretty much. That's what you do all day when I get hurt, there wasn't any question that I would do the same for you. You rarely pull rank so I don't really have to follow what you tell me, but I do keep it in mind, always"** Barry gave her a winning smile **"Good night Cait, sweet dreams. I'll be by in the morning to check up on you and see how you fare"**

 **"Good night, Barry"** she managed to put together a few words before falling soundly asleep. Barry made sure the crutches were somewhere she could reach them when she woke up and flashed back home coming face to face with Joe, who was watching his usual favorite sport, snooker, and drinking a beer.

 **"You still watching pool?"** Barry smiled toward him.

 **"This isn't pool, this is snooker. It's a game of finesse, tactics and positioning. Kind of like what it is to be a cop out in the field these days. Something that is just relaxing and fun to watch. For me at least"** He replied instantly

 **"Hmm, never knew that existed. Live and learn"** the speedster replied.

 **"How's Caitlin?"** he asked instantly

 **"Broken bones, some damage in her knee ligaments. She should be fine by tomorrow morning or at the latest, evening"** Barry replied.

 **"That would suck. Spending Christmas eve alone with your leg in a cast not being able to move"** the old detective spoke with a sad face.

 **"I don't intend to let her spend Christmas alone. But I can't ask her directly because I'm pretty sure she would brush me off. How about you ask her to come here and help us with the West family party. Since Iris moved in with Eddie we might need a woman's hand at setting up everything"** Barry suddenly realized.

 **"Why would she brush you off? You`re her partner. If there's anyone who should have to ask it would be you. How about you invite her and tell her that since Iris is gone we might need a helping hand. That should do you a bit of a favor but not completely give her weird ideas"** Joe looked at him crooked.

 **"That is actually a great plan. Thanks, Joe. You know, Cisco managed to tell me some of the reasons she doesn't like the holiday. Something about her always being alone and her mother never being around after her father died. Maybe being here with the family would actually take some of that loneliness away"** Barry reasoned.

 **"Well, if we invite her then we have to invite Cisco and Bette as well. I know how teams work, you can't invite someone and leave out someone else"** The detective used logic, which apparently was super effective.

 **"Then we will invite them as well. That won't be a problem will it? I mean you do know them and they do work with me on a regular basis"** Barry replied with the same coin.

 **"Nope, not a problem at all. Then I guess we have some preparing to do. You should get some rest. Also thank you for getting us out of that firefight unharmed"** Joe replied.

 **"You`re welcome"** Barry went up to his room and crashed in his bed falling asleep a few minutes later, the surgery in itself took a lot out of him since he had to keep focused the whole time he was working with his speed activated.

The next morning Caitlin woke up and tried to get out of bed. The pain in her thigh was completely gone, but she still felt like her knee was throbbing. Not having something to examine what kind of damage was still there, she decided to take it easy. She got out of bed and took ahold of the crutches and opened the door to her bedroom to go to the kitchen for some coffee. When she stepped out, her face fell. Her apartment was fully decorated with Christmas themed lights and adornments. In a corner of the living room a large tree which had been unpacked and also decorated was shining its light across the room which had been expertly darkened by the two curtains that were pulled.

Everything was a sight to behold. She looked at it and felt tears coming to her eyes. She could see the way that everything was put so expertly together, almost like made by someone who had a knack for decoration to bring out the best in a room. On the counter in the kitchen there was a still steaming coffee and a filled pot that wasn't cooled yet with a note **"** _Had a battle with a Grinch that took up residence under your carpet. I drove him away without much incident so I decided to give your apartment an immunization shot to keep him away. You'll find donuts in the oven, they might still be warm considering I don't know when you'll wake up. Will come by later to check on how you`re doing. Take care of yourself and remember to take it easy. Barry"_ She looked at the note and smiled, more tears streaming down her face. She took her coffee and took a slow tour through what she couldn't recognize as being her apartment anymore.

 ** _"I can't believe he would do this for me. Even when I was adamant about not liking Christmas, he still took the time. I want to give him a piece of my mind for losing time on this, but something tells me the Flash isn't just good at catching criminals. Somehow I don't think I should have dared him to try to make me enjoy this holiday, if he keeps this up he might actually succeed. Something which would not surprise me at all"_** She smiled to herself wiping her tears away and sitting on the couch to take a breather. Her leg had improved and the strange sensation in her knee had subsided. She decided to take a lazy day and just do nothing until Barry came to check up on her. Of course that didn't last long, she was getting totally bored flicking through the channel list and not finding something good to watch. In the end she decided to take the cast off and try to see if her injury was still a problem.

She got off from the bed and put her leg down, putting a bit of pressure on it. There was no pain. She tried it again only for her leg to buckle under her weight and for her to realize she was falling. She already put her hands under her to cushion the fall but the impact never came, instead she felt two arms around her waist that were holding her steady. When she opened her eyes, Caitlin saw Barry above her holding her in his arms.

 **"Doctors make the worst patients"** He scoffed helping her to her feet **"Didn't I tell you to take it easy?"**

 **"I am taking it easy. I just wanted to see if I can move around. Nothing hurts anymore, the tendons must have repaired themselves, except when I tried to put my foot down, my knee kind of cut out and I fell. Mind holding me up for a bit to see if I can actually walk on this thing?"** She looked at him. He nodded and put her hand around his neck holding her up but not off the ground.

 **"Keep your hand where it is. If you feel yourself falling just hold on"** he told her and she started to walk. There were a few steps where she might have fallen if he wasn't around, but after a few minutes of trying she was fine. She could walk without much issue **"It's probably because you kept it immobile since yesterday. Since our bodies regenerate, it might have thought that you didn't use it for a long while. Or maybe it was just lazy"** He joked looking at her. She was dressed in a pair of shorts and a tank top. The first time he had seen her like this she almost threw him out of her apartment. This time she didn't really seem to care.

 **"I'm fine. Also, what brought this on?"** she asked pointing at all the decorations.

 **"I wrote it in the note, did I not? I had a battle last night with the Grinch under your carpet and won. So I thought your apartment needed some Christmas cheer to not have him come back. Immunization 2.0 : Christmas Edition"** he told her with a goofy smile making her chuckle.

 **"Thank you for the decorations. Even as little as I think about Christmas this really surprised me when I woke up this morning. I love the way you arranged everything. It looks wonderful"** She told him truthfully

 **"Sorry I had to make the tree as well, usually we wait and we all put ornaments on the tree together, but I didn't know if you were going to be fully healed so I saved you the pain to try to put stuff on the tree while moving around on the crutches"** He smiled. She realized that he had wanted that. It was something that he had done with his family until now and he wanted to do that with her, but she was thankful that he thought ahead.

 **"I actually have to thank you for that too. It would have been a pain to try to move around the tree with those. Now tell me, how did this Grinch look like huh?"** She gave him the stink eye

 **"Kind of like you, only with a beard, kind of green and with frozen hair"** Barry made up the most ridiculous description he could come up with.

 **"Barry Allen, are you insinuating that I should shave my facial hair?!"** she said with a serious face, but then cracked and started laughing.

 **"What facial hair?"** he came toward her and put his hand on her face caressing her gently **"You don't have any, you smartass"** His hand with its swift motions almost made her come to a boil. She got red instantly and managed to get away from his touch before the change was permanent and too obvious. **"Which reminds me. I wasn't going to ask since you were hurt, but do you mind coming over to Joe's and giving us a hand to set up the West family Christmas party?"**

 **"No, not at all, but why do you need help now?"** she looked at him quizzically

 **"Well, as you know Iris moved out and she always helped. Now that she has her own apartment to set up, Joe and I were kind of left with the house. We enjoy doing it but considering this year there will be a few more additions to the guest list, we are going to need some extra hands to get everything ready"** Barry told her truthfully.

 **"What additions to the guest list?"** Caitlin asked with a surprised look.

 **"Eddie, Cisco, Bette and you. What? You thought I was asking you to help then telling you you`re not invited?"** Barry scoffed looking at her.

 **"Nothing of the sort. I just didn't expect to be invited to a Christmas party. That's all. I don't even have anything to wear"** She pouted.

 **"I took care of that. You have clothes in my room at Joe's for when you want to change. I took the liberty of getting a dress and a pair of shoes to come with it. I hope you don't mind"** the speedster told her pretty nonchalantly and her face instantly changed to a look of surprise at the thought that Barry had bought her a dress. She shrugged it off however thinking he was joking. Little did she know that he wasn't kidding in the slightest.

 **"If that's the case, then sure. I'll come help and stay for the party as well. Since you just so lovely decided to invite me right now and you even apparently have bought me a dress to wear"** she chuckled at him letting him know she got the point of what he was saying. She flashed into some normal clothes, a pair of track pants, a shirt and a hoodie leaving with Barry toward the West residence. Joe was not surprised at all to see them both flash into the living room accompanied by the usual gust of wind.

 **"Welcome, Caitlin. I see your injuries have healed, that's good."** Joe greeted her.

 **"I have Barry to thank for that. Without the amazing job he did yesterday on my surgery I would have probably been bed ridden for another few days. Bette assisted and told me that he checked, double-checked and triple checked what he was doing so that I would have the shortest recovery time possible. Must have been the fact that he wanted me here for Christmas"** Caitlin stated the truth with a bit of a chuckle and Joe's face simply fell.

 **"What do you mean … surgery? Is that something you can do and by extension so can Barry?"** the detective asked her pretty bluntly.

 **"Well, not as a profession, but what I know allows me to perform surgical procedures like a normal surgeon would. I just don't really do it unless it's necessary"** She told him **"And yes, Barry performed surgery on me yesterday, he had to remove the bullets and fix the wounds. He did an especially excellent job with the knee injury, hence I'm now healed. That type of surgery is pretty tricky even for me; it requires precision and a steady hand."**

 **"Well look at you. Next time my appendix annoys me I know who to call"** He chuckled making Barry laugh.

 **"I'll make sure I don't remove something vital"** Barry looked at him and seeing Joe giving him the stink eye he started to laugh again, this time joined by Caitlin.

 **"What is it you actually need help with?"** she asked looking around.

 **"Take your pick. Have to decorate the house, put up the tree, decorate the tree, prepare some eggnog and whatever else floats your fancy. That all in all should take quite some time so ... do whatever you two want. I'll put up the tree in the meantime, so I can check one item off that list"** He smiled and started fiddling with the tree to put it in its support. Barry changed into some track pants and a t-shirt himself and the two started to decorate the house. They didn't really use their speed, just when they got tired of doing just one section. Joe kept a close eye on the two who laughed and started to make jokes while they were busy decorating. Caitlin was having a blast, even if she didn't really equate this with Christmas, yet, she was having a lot of fun helping Barry put stuff up.

Joe could see it on their faces, they really enjoyed being with each other and even doing menial tasks, like putting up the ornaments around the house, was something that they liked to do, provided it was the both of them participating in the same activity. After a bit the tree was up and the two speedsters had finished with the house decoration. The old detective went out and got the tree ornaments from the cellar and started to arrange the tree himself.

 **"What do you think you`re doing?"** Barry stopped and looked at him

 **"Since you already put everything around the house I thought you should rest while I arrange the tree?"** Joe put it bluntly.

 **"We aren't tired. How about we help you with the tree as well"** Caitlin smiled. She turned to Barry and saw his face light up when she suggested that.

 **"Then by all means. Pick something and start hanging"** Joe laughed putting on some Christmas music. This time the speedsters didn't use their speed at all. Barry even picked up Caitlin a few times so she could get to the higher places, seeing that she was a bit shorter than him.

 **"Barry, why are you picking me up and helping me put the ornaments higher? Can't I get a chair like a normal person?"** she asked making a quizzical face.

 **"Cait, you have had a knee injury. While I have seen that you can walk pretty well, I would rather you not have a joint cut out and you falling face first into the tree or backward to break your neck. You know it doesn't bother me to help you, but if bothers you, yes I can bring you a chair, but I'm still going to hold you by your waist so you don't fall"** Barry told her with a surprisingly serious face. She was flabbergasted by his response. The idea that even after she would be completely healed, he cared about her so much about her health was something that it took her a bit to process. She didn't hate it at all to have him pick her up, she actually enjoyed it immensely, even though she wouldn't recognize that to his face.

 **"Point taken. No, it doesn't bother me at all I just thought you were making an extra effort to help. Lift away then"** She smiled while he grabbed her and lifted her up.

 **"Extra effort? You might be surprised, Cait, but you are pretty light, I don't really think this would classify as extra effort"** Barry gave her an inadvertent compliment which made her smile.

 **"Good to know all the eating didn't turn me into a miniature whale then"** She chuckled looking at him and enjoying the feel of his hands on her waist.

 **"Like that would ever happen, if you didn't know how our metabolisms worked I would have said something, but now I just know you're pulling my chain"** Barry scoffed and then started to chuckle.

Everything was set up for the party almost in time for everyone to arrive. Not that there were many guests, but in their hurry to put up the decorations they forgot that the house was a total mess. Barry called Cisco and Caitlin called Bette to invite them over which both happily accepted as well. Their little team was coming together. Somehow it completely slipped their mind to invite Dr. Wells, but then Caitlin realized he was always gone this time of year and came back well after new year so they were good on that front.

Iris and Eddie were the first to show up. Eddie was nicely dressed, but she was wearing about the same as Caitlin was. Her dress and everything was in a bag that she left in her room down the hall.

 **"Hey. We thought we'd come a bit early to help with everything, but ... it doesn't seem like you need any sort of help"** She saw Barry and Joe cleaning up the room. Her surprise was when she entered the kitchen where a homely dressed Caitlin was taking care of the tidying in that area. They had pulled straws to see who gets the largest room and who gets the smallest and she had won. Sadly, the smallest room didn't really entail the least amount of cleaning. Barry and Joe were good at keeping the kitchen clean however, so, thankfully for her, she didn't have that much to do.

 **"Hey, Caitlin. What brings you to our house so early?"** she asked quite surprised

 **"I've been here since noon. Barry asked me to help put everything together since you now had your own apartment to decorate and get ready for Christmas. I was happy to oblige, it's not like I have anything better to do and I enjoy the company"** she replied truthfully and with a large smile on her face.

 **"Cait, were almost done here, do you need an extra hand in the kitchen?"** Barry yelled from the house.

 **"I could use one if you two are already done there"** she replied raising her voice so they could hear her.

 **"That's why I came early too. But I guess someone thought about it in advance"** Iris winced. Barry didn't think to call her to help. He called Caitlin instead. That somehow irked her to no end **"I guess I'll go change then. Unless you need some help in here"** Iris said with quite a brunt tone to her voice.

 **"Hey, Eddie. Welcome. You can go change, Iris. I'll help Cait with the kitchen"** Barry replied from behind her while he entered **"Or you can see if Joe needs any sort of help anywhere else"** Iris was baffled by what she could only interpret as a brush off from him. She went and asked her father if there was something she could help him with, but to her surprise everything was ready except the part of the house where Caitlin and Barry were cleaning and had put some stuff to bake as well. Iris sat in the doorway and watched them.

The two were doing tasks opposite each other and conversing about the reality of quantum transposition, she didn't understand a thing, it was mostly gibberish to her. After that suddenly gritted to a halt, they began again discussing advanced genetics and how they might benefit humanity in a far-reaching future. The way they talked and the slight touches, the hands Barry put on Caitlin's waist, simply just to get her out of his way, something which Caitlin was doing as well to him when she needed him to move, gave Iris a sense of anguish. She could not explain what she was feeling, she was dating Eddie and she loved him, but seeing Barry with Caitlin, even though she knew for a fact the two weren't anything more than friends, stirred something inside her, a little monster with green eyes, that she didn't even think that could be even awakened by Barry. She had always seen him as a friend and nothing more, but all of a sudden when Caitlin was involved, she started to feel like this. The two noticed her sitting in the doorway and staring intently at them, like she was observing.

 **"Can we help you with anything, Iris?"** Barry asked nonchalantly as he was cleaning some plates and glasses.

 **"Um. No. I think I need to go change, dad doesn't have anything for me to do. It seems you two did a pretty awesome job in helping him"** Iris replied to his question.

 **"We try. Besides, it wasn't that much to do. Just put all the decorations up, the tree and get the house ready for guests and maybe get some sweets ready"** Caitlin replied. To them it wasn't much, because they had their speed. All that could have been done in less than 10 minutes if they so desired. However by taking it slow, it took a couple of hours. Barry and Caitlin enjoyed every moment of that time.

 **"What do you mean that's not much. That's basically all there is to do and it takes a lot of time even with three people"** She looked at them pretty surprised and a little confused.

 **"Let's just say we're faster than your average bunch now"** Barry cracked a joke and Caitlin smiled. Iris had no idea who the two were and how fast they could move, so all she could see was a bit of grandstanding from the man that was usually always late.

 **"Maybe you should apply that new found speed to the fact you always aren't on time to things then"** Iris roasted him a bit, but with a smile on her face.

 **"Actually, Iris"** Joe came up behind her **"Ever since these two started working together helping us on cases, he has never been late to a murder. His tardiness record has been consistently going down the drain. Good job on that by the way, Caitlin, I still don't know how you managed to do it"** the old detective gave the doctor a smile. Iris was again shocked. She knew Barry for a long while and ever since he had never been on time for anything. He was always late even for the most important events in his life. She looked at Caitlin and thought to herself **" _Just how much influence does this person have on Barry that she managed to change a habit that he has had ever since he was little in such short time? One that I have tried to fix consistently since he has been living here and yet always failed"_** that thought started to linger in her mind like a thorn.

 **"Once you know the secret to his tardiness it's easy to fix it"** the doctor chuckled.

 **"And what would that be?"** Iris asked surprised.

 **"He loves to sleep. In order to stop him sleeping you have to present him with something that he loves more than sleep. A good murder, a fresh cup of coffee, maybe even some donuts or all of the above. Those usually do the trick"** She chuckled.

 **"Definitely those three will always work, except most mornings before I got those there was the issue of a certain person calling me 30 minutes before my alarm is supposed to ring and yelling into my ear to wake up or else I was going to be late. While I love your voice waking me up Caitlin, sometimes I just think I might need earplugs to lessen the sound that comes over my phone every morning. I'm surprised the poor speaker hasn't caught fire yet, from the three digit number of decibels that comes out of it on a regular basis in the early hours of the morning"** Barry stated with a smile on his face. Caitlin immediately blushed hard. That statement got her completely by surprise. Barry loved her voice waking him up every morning. The candor in what he had said put a large smile on her face as well as being the cause of the visible nuance change. Iris caught the blush looking with a bit of a stink eye at the doctor.

 **"Not my fault you can barely hear when you wake up. I don't yell, I just raise my voice as much as I find necessary for you to wake up"** Caitlin tried to feign indignation, but seeing Barry's smile she realized her utter failure. Iris was not pleased by how close the two actually seemed. She decided however, to not act on anything she felt at the time and left to change in the other room. The way she walked though made Joe wonder what was that got to her, it was pretty obvious she was very annoyed.

 **"What has gotten into her?"** Eddie came and asked Joe seeing the same demeanor the old detective had detected in his daughter.

 **"I have no idea. She just rushed out of here for some reason. She might have something on her mind"** He replied shrugging and lifting his shoulders.

After a while, Bette and Cisco showed up themselves very nicely dressed. They were expecting a party. They brought booze even though they already knew that the two speedsters could not get drunk. The two went into the house and were greeted by the sight of Barry and Caitlin making stuff in the kitchen. Cisco smiled and poked Bette motioning toward the two that didn't seem to notice them observing.

 **"They look really into that don't they?"** the engineer smiled at the bomb expert.

 **"Strangely enough, they look like they would be the best homemakers ever"** She smiled at the short engineer who agreed silently as they went back into the house, joining the others.

 **"We're done"** the two told the old detective who had just come in to see what they were doing. The kitchen was clean as a whistle and the food was put very nice in plates spread all across the kitchen counter.

 **"You two should go and change then since everyone is here. Thank you for the help"** the old detective smiled looking their way.

 **"You are most welcome"** Caitlin replied and the two went up the stairs. Iris again looked crooked in their direction since they both went up at the same time. She had no idea if the two were close enough to actually change in the same place. Barry stopped in front of his room opening the door

 **"You go first. I don't have that much to do or put on"** he smiled and she understood what he was saying. She nodded and went inside. What she saw on the bed stunned her. It was the most beautiful dress she had ever seen. It looked like white silk, something that she was not accustomed to wearing. It had thick straps and almost nothing in the sense of cleavage. The back however had a deep cut all the way down half the back. She put it on and realized that it was fitting like a glove. She started to wonder where did Barry get her measurements, then she remembered that he had access to her STAR Labs file just like Cisco did. The shoes were classic heels, which were not too high the same white as her dress. It took her all of 2 minutes to get her hair in order and make it look presentable, letting her long locks flow on either side of her face. She put on a light shade of makeup that she always carried around and some red lipstick and she exited the room and the sight that she was presented with left her with a severe blush on her face.

Barry was dumbstruck. She had an elegant and classy demeanor about her that made his heart jump and then begin a rhythm that would have probably killed a normal human. His face started to go red and his jaw was firmly planted on the floor. Caitlin remembered this look from the time they went to see the presentation that was given by Simon Stagg. She recalled Barry gawking at someone then realizing later that it was her that he was looking. She decided to downplay the whole thing.

 **"What is it? Did I put on my makeup wrong or something?"** she told him with a low voice bringing him out of his shocked state.

 **"No, no. Nothing like that. What? Is it that bad to gawk at a beautiful woman? You look amazing, Cait"** He managed to utter. He realized that his words were almost the same as last time, but presented with the beauty of the woman in front of him it was like his vocabulary had been severely limited to that of a 5 year old.

 **"Thank you. You have some credit in there as well. I love this dress. Is this my Christmas present?"** She chuckled

 **"Well you can see it that way. I just got it for you because I wanted to see you in it"** The speedster replied with a candor that was refreshing

 **"Thank you for the beautiful gift then. Now, how about you go get changed as well or the people downstairs will think that we might be doing something else rather than changing our clothes"** She chuckled and Barry started to go red in the face. He went into the room himself coming out about 30 seconds later in a suit and looking very handsome and presentable.

 **"I have said this before, but you do look very elegant and proper when you wish to be"** She offered him a compliment

 **"I try, although I don't think anyone is going to be looking at me. Shall we?"** He extended a hand which she took without thinking twice and they went to join their friends. While coming down the stairs however, she had the same effect on Cisco, Eddie and Joe as well. They were all looking at her. As Barry had predicted, nobody was looking at him, as the gazes of Iris and Bette were on her as well as all of the guys'. She looked at them properly shocked and broke the ice with a joke that she thought to be fitting.

 **"Do I have something in my teeth?"** she asked not being able to stifle a chuckle. Everyone started to laugh remembering that the beautiful woman was a good friend to all of the people that were there, maybe except for Iris and Eddie.

 **"I told you nobody would be looking at me"** Barry told her again and that made her blush profusely. Cisco was not at all surprised, he had seen the doctor's classy side back at the same presentation that they had been to earlier. Bette however had not and she was very surprised at what she saw.

 **"Barry, you seem to have skimped out on us, my friend. Nobody knew that your doctor friend could present herself in such a beautiful manner"** Eddie slipped up big time. Iris instantly shot a cold glare at him like he had been praising Satan or something.

 **"He does have a hand in this. After all, he did buy me the dress I'm wearing and the shoes. I'm guessing someone helped him get into the STAR Labs personnel files to get my exact measurements?"** Caitlin gave Cisco the stink eye.

 **"Don't look at me, I do know those since I made something to fit you earlier, but he did that all by himself. So, no picking on the Cisco, alright?"** the engineer raised his hands in surrender. Caitlin looked at Barry who smiled then whispered in her ear

 **"Cait, I didn't have to look at any files, I have photographic memory and your Frost suit. Or did you forget about that?"** He told her. She nodded, but the hot air that brushed her ear from his mouth enticed her to no end. On the other side of the room, Iris was really annoyed **_"He bought her a dress and shoes, he is apparently close to her enough to whisper in her ear and he knows her measurements by heart. Something is definitely going on, these two aren't just colleagues. I can feel it in my gut"_** she told herself and her demeanor started to change.

 **"You look wonderful, Caitlin"** Joe decided to be a bit classier than the younger detective who, at the looks his girlfriend was giving him was probably going to spend the following night on the couch. Barry was feeling proud. She had known for a while what a beauty she was and now the people that were present could see that as well. When she wanted to at least or when she needed to. Not like the pencil skirts and assorted blouses didn't bring out her elegance, but this overall was something completely different.

The party could not be compared to something Caitlin had ever been before. The tone was soft and mellow and everyone was having fun. Her family was never like that. Not even when her father was alive, they would sit and discuss science most of the time. The Wests were warm, gentle people and Joe and Barry made her feel right at home with no problem of blending in. Iris however stood in the sidelines, it was a bit obvious that she didn't like the good doctor. For reasons known only to her, Barry tried to decipher the reasons in her head as he had seen her pout almost all the time there, but soon realized he didn't care what her reasons were. He didn't invite Caitlin to make Iris jealous, the reason that happened was for the simple fact that she was his close friend, partner and he had begun to consider her as family. Surprisingly, these days, Iris didn't really fit any of those categories.

Eddie noticed something was wrong with her so the two excused themselves and left early. Something that surprised everyone in the room. For the first time in his life Barry actually wanted Iris to leave. She was in the dumps and was taking down the mood of the whole party with her. He actually smiled after Eddie and Iris went out the door, Caitlin picked up on that almost immediately. She followed him on one of his many trips to the kitchen.

 **"Why are you smiling? Did you want them to leave?"** She asked bluntly

 **"To tell you the truth? Yes, I did. However, I'm not talking about Eddie, he's a cool guy and I like having him around. I wanted Iris gone. I don't know what's going on with her, but her mood was bringing the whole house down. You would think after getting a great guy like Eddie and moving in with him, she would be happy. I guess that's not even a bullet point on the list that makes her smile"** Barry replied with a grimace. She could detect a hint of disgust in his voice.

 **"You did notice when her demeanor changed, didn't you?"** The chestnut haired woman asked him while they were having some eggnog. Of course, they had it for the taste because like any alcohol it had no effect on them.

 **"Yeah. When she saw that you were here and helping and she had nothing to do. I don't understand what she was thinking. She showed up 30 minutes early. If there was nothing done in the house then that's not even enough time to put half the decorations up. Hell, it's not even enough time to make the tree. On the other side, if there was something to do me and Joe would have gotten no help, everything would still be pretty much ready. So she wouldn't have anything to do either way. What was she expecting?"** Barry almost face palmed talking with a tone of visible frustration

 **"I don't think that's why she was like that. The obvious culprit would be that she felt somehow replaced. She has moved out and the moment she does someone else comes and helps. That would be me. If I would venture a guess, that would be the first thing that would come to my mind. She felt replaced and she didn't like it"** Caitlin offered a partial explanation trying her best to understand Iris's reasons to act that way.

 **"That's just stupid"** Barry replied **"She's gone. The fact that you're here just reflects the simple truth, I see you as family. You are my partner. Cisco and Bette are good friends. I don't want to replace her, but the fact of the matter is that she is the one that accepted to move out. She left to live with Eddie. I wanted you to come help, you wanted to help, so you`re here. Why would that be so hard to understand for her is beyond me at this point"** the speedster looked really frustrated. Caitlin however was shocked by the candor of his statement. **" _I see you as family"_** and **_"I wanted you to help"_** were the two things that she didn't expect to come out of his mouth. She was really happy to hear that, in the many years since she had come here her only true family was Ronnie. Nobody else, the fact that she was now in another house, being invited and attending a Christmas party that was a tradition for another family was something that for her was amazing. She started to understand a bit better how Barry saw her and also the fact that he asked her to help because he wanted her here, with him.

 **"I don't know. There might be something else I guess, but I can't be sure since she rarely spoke to me all night"** Caitlin told him

 **"What else can it be?"** Barry asked **"I'm sorry, I just suck at understanding women. I did gawk at someone and wasn't able to express my feeling for almost a decade, which resulted in me getting the short end of the stick … so yeah, totally not an expert here"**

 **"Maybe jealousy. But that would mean that she has some feelings for you, which would be a pretty dick move considering she's dating Eddie"** Caitlin was as truthful as she could without hitting a puddle with a sledgehammer.

 **"I doubt it. Maybe not jealousy of me, but of you ... that could be. I noticed the way she was looking at you when we came down after we changed. It was like she was annoyed that you took the spotlight away from her, even though she looked beautiful in what she was wearing, furthermore her face changed drastically when you mentioned that I bought you the dress and the shoes as a Christmas present and I think it's the first year in which I didn't really get her anything"** the speedster told his partner

 **"I didn't know that was the case. I thought you did get her something. Then her demeanor changing is warranted, you bought me something and didn't get her anything. That can certainly classify as envy or annoyance. Oh, did you notice the looks she gave Eddie when he made that comment about me?"** Caitlin chuckled.

 **"Oh I did. I'm thinking he's going to sleep on the couch tonight. Poor guy, he was just stating an obvious truth. Something that I saw the moment you came out of the room wearing that dress. Nonetheless, stating the truth should not warrant you a night on the couch, what is that even about?"** Barry chuckled as well, but he was indeed sorry for Eddie. He was a pretty decent guy and if Iris was pulling this kind of shit on him, he definitely didn't deserve it. Barry just put it out of his mind. Without Iris's bad mood to put everyone down the party soon started to be cheerful again. After a while, Barry and Caitlin went out on the patio looking at the weird weather they were having.

 **"Great. I wanted to show you how nice it is to be playing with snow and its half raining"** Barry sounded really annoyed.

 **"Barry, I'm kind of cold. Maybe we should go back inside"** She told him. Doing the gentlemanly thing he took off his jacket and gave it to her. She smiled and didn't feel the cold anymore.

 **"You know you could turn on your ice powers again right? You have finished healing"** He smiled at her

 **"You are right about that. I forgot completely that I had them off"** She pressed the earrings in a specific succession and the usual fog enveloped her as her power returned. After that happened she pushed them again and she just turned on the cosmetic mode. Cisco had already thought that she might need to control them without having the bracers around so he build in a series of switches in the two devices that when pressed in a particular order they would activate or deactivate certain modes.

 **"So you want snow, huh?"** she looked at Barry sheepishly

 **"If you are referring to yourself, my dear doctor, then it probably wouldn't surprise you if I answered yes"** Barry tried to crack half a joke, since he did indeed like Caitlin, but the way he phrased it left her with her jaw on the floor.

 **"My, my Barry Allen, aren't we direct now with what we want"** She laughed trying to hide her complete surprise and the blush that was creeping on her face **"You know what I wanted to ask, don't twist my words, Mister"**

 **"Yes I would love to not actually be sleet on Christmas, Cait"** He told her truthfully. She smiled at him and concentrated throwing two large ice beams into the sky above and a ring of frost bloomed around her feet. After not even a minute it started to snow beautifully and the mush in the backyard had frozen to a manageable state. The three came out and looked at the sky.

 **"Wasn't it sleet that was coming down a few moments ago?"** Cisco asked with a surprised face.

 **"Yes. Our Ice princess made it so that we actually have snow instead of that mushy stuff. Just don't call her Elsa, if you know what's good for you and you want to live"** Barry smiled at his partner who smirked. He didn't even have to react when a large snowball made by Cisco hit him straight in the face. The engineer was snickering. **"Oh you are so going to get it"** Barry used his speed to make a few snowballs that went like shot out of a cannon toward the grinning person that nearly dodged all of the snowballs, one of them hitting him straight in the face.

 **"Don't you even think of hitting…"** Caitlin didn't finish her sentence and she received a snowball to the face from the same Cisco that was grinning. She didn't really feel cold because of her powers, but the water was starting to seep in her dress. **"Me"** she finished. She didn't even have to make snowballs in her hands since she could easily create them out of the moisture in the air. She grinned and a flurry of them left toward the engineer that again got hit pretty hard.

 **"No fair. Two super powered people against a slow undertrained engineer"** He started to laugh. Bette was chuckling, but she joined the battle on Cisco's side. The two speedsters didn't really target her, the engineer being their primary quarry. Deciding that they might need help, Joe put some winter gear on and started to throw snowballs at the two speedsters, being greeted himself with one of the snow cannons that Barry seemed to be very apt at doing. Joe actually managed to get a few good shots on him and Bette made a small snowball and put her powers in it creating what you would call a snow grenade. Everyone was surprised when instead of just hitting one side they were all greeted with a wave of snow to the face.

 **"Hey, I didn't know this game had friendly fire turned on?!"** the engineer cracked a joke to which they all started to laugh. The fight lasted for almost an hour. By the end everyone was wet and had snow in every place you would think of. However, they were all laughing and making jokes.

 **"Let's go back inside"** Joe called out to everyone **"Besides Caitlin who is obviously almost immune to the freezing temperatures, we are all wet and cold and I don't want you to get sick"** His voice was stern, almost like a father. Barry had recognized his tone and smiled. Everyone went back inside and got warm. Bette and Cisco decided it was time to go home since they needed a change of dry clothes and a shower. Barry took them both to their respective apartments, telling Caitlin to rest. The ice blasts she had used to turn everything solid had her a bit tired. He came back and saw her out of the dress and back into the clothes she took for herself after taking a shower at high speed. Joe was in the bathroom taking a shower himself.

 **"See? I told you, you could have fun with snow if you had people that wanted to have fun with you"** Barry smiled and sped out of his wet suit and into the same track pants and shirt he had on before changing.

 **"I'm glad I came. This is the most fun I have had in years during the winter months"** She replied to him giving him a genuine large smile that made him pretty happy.

 **"I'm glad you came too. Sorry about the gloom fest earlier with Iris"** He told her sneaking his arm around her waist.

 **"It's fine, she can do whatever she wants. She's an adult like us. As I have just stated, this was still the most fun I have had in years. Thank you for inviting me"** she replied with beautiful smile across her face.

 **"No problem and I also want to thank you for helping with setting up everything. You were a real life saver. You want me to take you home? Or you can sleep here if you want"** He told her

 **"Barry Allen, how would you even insinuate that?"** She tried to look outraged thinking that he actually proposed she sleep with him

 **"Well, Iris isn't here anymore. So we do have a free room you know, I wasn't insinuating anything at all, Cait"** He pointed to the vacant room down the hall.

 **"Oh. Thank you, but I don't want to intrude. If you have enough energy remaining, you could take me home. I went a bit overboard with the blasts that I used, I must have frozen the clouds above the whole city. You know, I should have never dared you to try to make Christmas enjoyable for me. It seems that you succeeded"** She started to yawn.

 **"I'm glad to hear that, next time do remember that I always love a challenge, besides I didn't want to see that gloomy face, so I had to do something. Yes I have enough energy, hold on"** He got her in his arms, took the dress and shoes, and deposited her straight in her bedroom putting the dress to dry off and the shoes in her usual place. **"Sleep tight and sweet dreams, Cait"** He tucked her in after she got off her clothes and flashed into some pajamas while he was in the house **"Merry Christmas"**

 **"Thank you for the ride. Good night, Barry. Merry Christmas to you too"** She smiled huddling under the warmth of the blanket. Using her powers to that extent had taxed her enough. In a few moments she was asleep. He went to the tree and left something underneath for her to find. He smiled to himself and went out the door, which he closed with the keys that were in her purse. He pushed the keys under the door so she could get out the next morning, He flashed back to the West residence where he cleaned everything up as fast as he could then went to his bedroom and plopped into bed.

The next morning Caitlin awoke and went to the kitchen to make herself some coffee. She had slept very well and the fatigue that she had in her system from the night before was gone. Her eyes stopped on the lonely box that was underneath her tree. She went to it and picked it up, opening it. Inside there was a broach in the form of a snowflake. Something Barry decided to pick up for her. Next to it was a small note. _"A snowflake for the beautiful Dr. Snow. Merry Christmas. Barry"_ She smiled looking at it and decided that she would have to get him something in the near future. She loved the broach and how it looked. It was a present from Barry; she knew that he had an idea of what she would like. She smiled widely and chuckled at herself **" _Merry Christmas, Barry Allen and thank you"_**


	14. Suddenly

Cisco was staring intently at a dossier about project Firestorm. In the past couple of days he had heard about sightings of a burning man. Someone that looked a lot like Ronnie was prowling the streets of Central City and some of the blog posts on Iris's blog confirmed that. He thought nothing of them at first, but after they had caught Hartley Rathaway the real dilemma presented itself. He had told Cisco that he knew what had happened to Ronnie and the only way he would disclose that information was if he was let free. The engineer was pondering the pros and cons of that decision as he munched on the end of a pen. Something he usually did when he was thinking.

The morning was very busy for Barry and Caitlin. After being called to Mercury Labs to investigate a crime scene, in which they found that the damage done to the people could have only been caused by a speedster, and the fact that a new prototype tachyon device was missing, they were called again to Iron Heights this time, to help in investigating a prison break that had occurred the other night. At least that's what they called it. As always Caitlin had her CSI badge with her, the one that Felicity made for her back when she was in Central City. She was no longer a stranger at crime scenes these days, Joe and Eddie would not be surprised to find her digging over dirt with Barry, even a few of the regular officers started to recognize her and let her in even when Barry was not around or was late. However many of the officers noticed that him being late almost never happened these days. She did not enjoy being a CSI as much as Barry did, that was for sure, but she did enjoy the time they spent together. She knew that he didn't have much love for the scientific process either, even now that he had her know how, but he would still be with her as she did her work and most of the time proved to be a very competent researcher helping her in solving everyday problems at STAR.

The one that truly surprised her with his reaction was Captain Singh. She knew for a fact that the badge that Felicity made would not be of any use if he told her to stay out of his crime scenes, but he was very pleased that Barry had help and even more pleased that she was on STAR's payroll not his. He was never the man to refuse additional assistance and after the background check he did on her seeing all her degrees and credentials (for which he thanked Felicity in her head) he was more than eager to welcome her to the team.

 **"Barry, did you find anything?"** Caitlin asked while looking at a trail of weird particulate matter on the floor.

 **"Nothing besides this weird material that's almost everywhere. No fingerprints, no usual suspects, I didn't expect to find bullet casings either since where were no shots fired"** he replied.

 **"Take a sample of that from the cell. I already took a sample of this stuff from outside. I tried to check the security footage but one by one the cameras to this cell were taken out without actually registering anything useful"** Caitlin added examining the cell while Barry took a sample of the residue.

 **"Hey, Barry, there's someone here to see you"** Joe's voice spoke from the direction of the door where two figures stood while our CSI's were combing the cell. One of the figures were looking intently at the two. Barry turned around and smiled.

 **"Dad!"** he smiled and went in to hug the man wearing prison slacks. **"How, what? How are you here?"**

 **"Hey, slugger. Just a prisoner walking by, a dad wanting to see his son. What are you doing here?"** The man smiled.

 **"We were called on a prison escape, we're here to gather evidence to figure out what happened"** he answered

 **"We? Last I know you were the only CSI and the CCPD"** his father answered with a questioning look.

 **"Well I still am, except now I have a partner that's not really at the CCPD. She works at STAR Labs. And comes over to help when we need it** " He motioned to her to come closer **"Dad, this is Dr. Caitlin Snow. Cait, this is my father. Henry Allen"**

 **"Glad to meet you Dr. Allen"** Cait put out a hand to be shook by the man in shackles.

 **"Same here, Dr. Snow"**

 **"Henry, our time here is up. I need to take you back to your cell"** Joe added and answering a quizzical look from Barry as to how this happened **"One of the guards owed me a favor"** he smiled. Barry mouthed a thank you as the two left for Henry's cell.

 **"What's the scoop on those two?"** Henry asked

 **"Remember I told you Barry woke up, but he wouldn't leave the lab because of something he needed to do?"** the detective replied

 **"Yes"** Henry replied remembering what had happened a few months ago

 **"She is what he needed to attend to. They were both struck by lightning. He woke up early and remained in the lab for 6 months straight trying to figure out why she wouldn't wake up"** Joe added, but keeping the rest of the things secret. Henry did not need to know now the whole deal.

 **"He likes her. A father can always tell"** Henry smiled toward Joe

 **"Yes, he does, but he's beating around the bush. They are always together. She helps him with his CSI stuff then he helps her with research at STAR. After they both woke up, I don't think I have ever seen Barry without her around, except when he comes home to sleep"** Joe was being blunt about it. Barry was Henry's son after all so he deserved to know

 **"What is Barry doing helping with research at STAR Labs. He's a CSI"** Henry asked with an inquisitive look on his face.

 **"That is a story for another time my friend. Take care"** Joe answered before handing Henry back over to the guard that was to put him in his cell.

 **"Thank you for taking me to see my son"** he responded before Joe left, returning to the two that were now coming out of the cell.

 **"So tell me. How does a prisoner vanish in thin air out of a locked cell?"** the detective asked. **"His name was Clay Parker, as the prison records state"**

 **"Well … he didn't actually vanish"** he saw Caitlin hold up two vials **"he left this behind"**

 **"What is that?"** the inevitable question popped up

 **"Some kind of organic residual particulate. It was here in the cell, outside, in the hallway, Caitlin followed the trail all the way to a window that went outside"** Barry started

 **"However the window itself was shut tight and the bars were not damaged"** Caitlin finished

 **"And the prisoners never saw or heard anything"** Joe added

 **"That doesn't leave us a lot to go on. Let's go to STAR, maybe the high resolution spectrometers may help in finding the persons involved"** Barry spoke. The two speedsters nodded and left the prison and flashed back to STAR Labs. After about an hour, they managed to get a result that was quite interesting.

 **"I've never seen anyone with cells that move that fast. Not even one of us"** Caitlin said visibly surprised

 **"So, Clay Parker is a metahuman"** Joe stated

 **"Not so fast"** Harrison wells approached the screen that held the high resolution images **"The residue that you collected from Iron Heights does contain Clay Parker's DNA, but also the DNA of a woman, see here?"** He pointed **"There are two types of DNA in different pieces of the residue"**

 **"I'll run the DNA against the CCPD database, see if I come up with something"** Cisco was already keying in the sequence obtaining a result quite fast. The new software Felicity gave them was working beautifully **"Yahtzee. Her name is Shauna Baez. Mostly petty crimes, but this girl likes to party. A whole lot of drunk and disorderly conduct on her rap sheet"**

 **"So if we find her we find Clay Parker, I'm guessing"** Joe smiled **"Barry? Coming?"**

 **"We need to find out in the meantime how these particulates work"** Wells interjected. Barry looked at Caitlin

 **"I'll stay and work on the residue"** Caitlin told him **"You go with Joe and see what you can find out** "He nodded and they left.

 **"I'll be right with you guys, I just need to take care of something first"** Cisco added while leaving the cortex. He went down to the pipeline to talk to Rathaway about Ronnie. It didn't take long but he found out that Professor Stein ( the man behind the firestorm project) was at STAR the night the particle accelerator exploded. However, as Rathaway succinctly put it, the mystery wasn't why Stein was at the lab that night. It was why he didn't leave. In a stupid conscience call Cisco let him out of the pipeline and took him outside, where Pied Piper showed him a scorch mark on the wall in the shape of a human, it was similar to a bomb shadow left from the explosion of a nuclear device. He did try to escape but Cisco was ready. Rathaway was back in the pipeline soon enough and Cisco left for the cortex.

When Barry came back the only person in the Cortex was Caitlin. She was staring intently at a screen where she had a spectrographic analysis of the particulates in motion.

 **"Hey"** he quipped

 **"Hey, so get this. When Clay Parker's cells come into contact with Shauna's they adopt their properties, which would explain why he disappeared. She came in and they both got out … somehow"** He saw quite clearly at how she was biting her bottom lip. Something was definitely up

 **"Anything bothering you, Cait?"** the speedster asked her pretty bluntly

 **"Why would you ask that?"** she looked at him surprised.

 **"You're doing that biting your lower lip thing that you do when something is bothering you. Do I need to ask again?"** He answered and she blushed. She had no clue he had noticed something so minuscule about her. Yes, she would bite her lip every time something was bothering her; she was conscious about it but still did it.

 **"I'm fine"** she responded, but after a bit of time she continued **"Actually … I'm not. Cisco says I don't have a life"** her pouty face being even cuter than her angry one, Barry noted mentally

 **"You don't … do you? Most of the time you're with me"** he stated

 **"I do! I cook, I eat, I read, I run at superhuman speeds through the city and I help you"** she frowned

 **"So you're saying is, that you do just about everything that has nothing to do with having a life"** he had a smirk on his face at those words.

 **"No need to be rude about it"** Caitlin feigned indignation, but the smile she had on her face said otherwise.

 **"Hey, you`re doing better than I am. My social life consists of running at superhuman speeds and Netflix"** Barry answered with a grin.

 **"We are quite the pair, Mr. Allen"** the doctor replied smirking at him.

 **"Yes we are, Dr. Snow. But I do enjoy us not having a life together, if that is something of a comfort for you"** Barry smiled and Caitlin sensed the creeping blush on her face. The alarm sounded they had a crime in progress

 **"We have a robbery in progress. Suspects male and female in their 20's. Sounds like our metahuman Bonnie and Clyde"** Caitlin showed him a spot on the map

 **"I guess it's time to ruin their social life, Cait"** He added as they sped out the door in their suits.

As they got to the crime scene, they could see that they were too late. The robbery had already taken place. They saw Shauna Baez dissolve and appeared later on the top of a nearby building, the two were on her trail but she was moving too fast. The distance of her jumps increasing as they continued to follow her. After about 30 minutes of chasing her, she disappeared prompting them to return to STAR.

 **"Shauna Baez can teleport"** Barry stated bluntly Getting a strange look from Wells that was looking on the particulate analysis.

 **"Yes, of course. Quantum entanglement. The ability to manipulate interconnecting particles over an infinite distance or as Einstein put it. Spooky action … at a distance"** Wells realized

 **"Every time I'd get close she'd disappear. It was like playing a game of…"** Barry got cut off

 **"Peek-a-boo"** Caitlin quipped **"What? Don't I even get to name one?"** she gave Barry a smile **"More to the point, how are we supposed to catch her if we don't know where she is going to be and the fact that she can keep up with our speed by simply teleporting to another spot?"**

 **"Be patient, Dr. Snow. Now that we know her powers, we can work on her limits. She must have limits like anyone else. It could be her range, her rate of teleport, her stamina. We will have to find out"** Wells concluded.

 **"Well, I need to go change and help Iris with something"** Barry said and left prompting Caitlin to give him a weird look. It surprised her that he would even consider going to help Iris after the stuff she pulled at the Christmas party. She shrugged it off and went to see if she can find any more on Shauna's powers.

Barry was kind of disappointed when he reached the station. Iris had decided to ditch him for a date with Eddie, which managed to get off early. They went out to celebrate. Iris had gotten a job at the local paper because of her articles on the Flash and her blog. After thinking a bit he pulled his cell and called Caitlin

 **"Hey!"** the sweet voice answered from the other side of the line **"Are you done already with helping Iris?"**

 **"Hey, Cait. No, she decided to ditch me for a date with Eddie, nothing surprising. I ask myself why she even bothers to have me assist with certain things. Tell me do you know which bars did Clay Parker and Shawna Baez frequent?"** Barry inquired. Caitlin could hear the small tone of annoyance in his voice

 **"Mostly south side dive bars, why?"** she answered looking over the data she had available on the escapee and his girlfriend.

 **"I was just going to check them out, see if they fall into old habits. I don't feel like going home just yet"** He replied

 **"That's a good idea. I think I'll join you. Haven't been in a bar in a long while and since Iris ditched you and I'm alone in the lab, why not"** she answered. He was quite stunned at the notion at going out to a bar with Caitlin, but he didn't really object since he was used to being with her almost all day every day.

 **"Sure. You want me to pick you up?"** the speedster asked and those words kind of froze her. If they were going out as friends then they should meet there, right? She was kind of rusty at the whole dating game. Rusty in the way a piece of steel that was 40 years under water would be. She thought to herself **" _Well, I might as well treat this as a date. If he doesn't want it to be a date, then I can just use plausible deniability"_** _._ She got off her chair and continued **"Yea. I need to get home and change though. So … Give me 30 minutes?"**

 **"You have super speed, why do you need 30 minutes, last we checked you and me had the same speed?"** Barry asked making a weird face.

 **"I need to finish something here at the lab first and only then I can go home and change. That's why"** she lied. In reality, she knew full well why she needed 30 minutes, which in the dilated time scape was much more. She had no idea what to wear to the **"date"**

 **"All right. I'll see you in 30 minutes"** he closed the line and then it dawned on him, the same thing that dawned on her **" _Is this a date? I mean … if we would be going out as friends then we should meet there"_** he asked himself. He was going to treat it as a date, since he had to pick her up anyway, which meant 30 minutes was all he needed to go home, take a shower wear something nice and, why not, maybe present himself with a flower at her door **" _If I get her a flower that won't be creepy, right? Yeah no way that can be considered creepy. I hope she doesn't find it creepy"_** he babbled to himself as he sped home smiling as the small rant in his head reminded him of Felicity.

After exactly 30 minutes, Barry was in front of Caitlin's door with a sunflower and a red rose. He knocked on the door feeling quite giddy for some reason. It was as if he was on prom night taking someone out, except the last time he tried inviting someone to prom night he was rejected. She opened the door and his mouth dropped. In front of him was a different Caitlin Snow. She wasn't wearing the usual pencil skirt and blouse or anything that would be similar to evening wear, instead she wore a black dress, quite short and hugging her curves. With black heels and her hair let down het chestnut curls framing her delicate face. He had seen her before wearing long beautiful evening dresses, but now he understood where the remark about her having long legs that Cisco had put out a while back actually came from.

 **"Hi!"** she managed to break the silence.

 **"Hi. Wow. You are … beautiful"** he managed to articulate a sentence after a bit and he extended his hands with both flowers **"Pretty flowers for a pretty girl"**

 **"But why two of them?"** she asked amused at his attempt **"Just so you know, I don't always dress like a high school principal as you might have noticed on at least two other occasions"**

 **"Sunflowers because you like them and a red rose because … Well just because"** he couldn't find his words which was a first for him.

 **"Why Mr. Allen, are we going out on a date?"** she smiled brightly at him hoping that he would actually say yes for a change. The question left the fastest man alive literally frozen but he managed to save it at the last minute.

 **"I don't know Dr. Snow. Are we?"** that's all he could come up with, even though at the time his heart and mind were racing at incredible speed. It was the same case with her, he had just dropped the ball in her court. The answer she would give now would be definitive.

 **"Maybe"** she couldn't bring herself to say yes, which was strange because she hoped he would a moment earlier, but the smile on her face was definitely saying that.

 **"Then a maybe date it is, Cait"** He said smiling offering both the flowers. Her nickname never seemed to have much of an effect on her. Since it was used more by her family she never thought it could sound so alluring coming from him. **" _If I had those monitors on me from STAR I think they would probably blow up right now_ "** she thought to herself feeling her heart beat in her chest. She put the flowers in a vase and took his and as they sped over to one of the dive bars where the two thieves were spotted. They both stopped just short of the bar in an alley so that no one could see them flash in, they went in and sat at a table.

 **"So this is one of the bars Shauna and Clay frequent"** Barry commented not knowing how to strike up a conversation

 **"It is, according to the files"** she said looking at the man that was singing on the stage **"I thought we could kill two birds with one stone. Do a little recon and maybe go out for a drink"**

 **"Cait, we can't get drunk, remember?"** Barry said with a bit of a frown on his face.

 **"Yes we can"** she took out 6 vials of Killer Flash **"I thought having a drink and some fun was the point to coming to a dive bar"**

Barry ordered two shots, which came almost immediately. The two drank them, of course the alcohol in them being burnt in their system instantly. Then she emptied three vials each in each of the glasses.

 **"So how are things going with Iris? Did you ever find out what was that she had on her mind back at the Christmas party?"** she asked. He used to talk about her a lot, but after that incident it seemed like that had stopped suddenly.

 **"They aren't going. I decided to let that in my life go. It's strange but when I see her and Eddie together I am genuinely happy for them. To be perfectly honest, I don't really care about what she was thinking, if she wants to be like that then let her be, it's not really my problem anymore. How about you?"** Barry returned her question

 **"The last few months and the particle accelerator explosion have … made me reconsider the ideas that I had before. I didn't want to be hurt again, but as they say, no risk, no reward"** She answered.

 **"What is wrong with us? We're in our 20's, We should be having fun, not running around the city at super speed and coming home to watch sappy shows on Netflix"** he scoffed, but had a smirk on his face.

 **"Well, here's to liquid courage"** Caitlin took the glass she had and downed it all in one go, the effect of the brew she came up with being visible.

 **"Oh. Um. That is … really ... fast"** he muttered. He only took a sip and felt the concoction already affecting him.

 **"Hey. Barry. I want to sing"** Said Caitlin who was already under the influence of the alcohol, already had a giddy demeanor and was smiling brightly.

 **"Sure. What do you want to sing?"** he asked her.

 **"Me? No. I want to sing, with you"** she completed her previous sentence.

 **"Um. Where did that come from?"** he inquired quite surprised.

 **"Remember the day I woke up? Before I opened my eyes I head you sing "summer nights", but you stopped as soon as you realized I was awake. I would like to hear you sing that from start to finish"** She looked at him and gave him a sly smile.

 **"Ok, sure"** he was totally out of it. He decided to take another few sips of the drink in front of him, just to steady his heart and maybe gather his thoughts. As he did that, Caitlin just stepped onto the stage and called out for him, making the entire bar call out his name until he made it to the stage. She was definitely hammered. After an impromptu rendition of _"summer nights"_ they went back to the bar.

 **"Wow, you`re fast and you can sing? What can't you do, Barry Allen?"** she said with a surprised tone even though she was drunk.

 **"Apparently, I can't stop you from downing drinks so fast that you don't get wasted in 5 minutes"** He chuckled seeing the flustered Caitlin

 **"I need to go to the bathroom. Be right back"** she said as she headed towards the ladies room. Barry noticed the other woman that was approaching him

 **"Nice performance up there. That was some of the best singing that I've heard coming from that stage. You definitely made my ears happy"** she continued **"So was that your girlfriend up there?"**

 **"No, no, she's a friend, although I wouldn't mind it at all if she was what you suggested"** Barry responded.

 **"Hey, have you heard of this new phone app .You just touch your phone with someone else's, and it automatically downloads your contact information"** She did just that **"See? Now you have my phone number. What you do with it … is up to you. Good night"** she gave him a smiled and left and he could see Caitlin come out of the bathroom.

 **"Barry, I don't feel so good"** she muttered

 **"Ok, let's go"** they walked out and before he could flash her to her home, Caitlin emptied the contents of her stomach on the sidewalk. Barry was holding her hair out of the way as she heaved, slowly rubbing her back to calm her down. He had been careful to throw the rest of the Killer Flash away as he barely managed to drink half the glass. After she finished, he just took her In his arms and stopped in a nearby bathroom at a restaurant so she could get cleaned up, after that flashing straight to her apartment.

 **"Are we there yet?"** she asked

 **"Yep, we're here"** the speedster answered still with his hands around her trying to steady her movement.

 **"Ugh. Killer Flash and super speed. Not a good combination"** she commented while Barry let her go, but she tripped almost falling. She tried to speed out of the position but failed, pinning him to the wall, their lips way too close one to the other. Her heart started to accelerate, Caitlin Snow was pinning Barry Allen to the wall. She made a judgement call. Her lips touched his, she could feel the heat and the electricity coming from something that she had experienced only one other time. The time she had kissed him in bed after he recovered her necklace. His lips were soft and the contact made her heart race as if it wanted to get out of her chest. The kiss was brief, but it seemed to last for hours. She didn't feel Barry pull away, his hand moving to her waist to hold her gently.

His experience was no different, her lips were soft and tasted like cherries and her body was pressing onto his as the sensations ran wild. That kiss was a replay of the kiss that she gave him after he managed to get back the necklace Ronnie gave her at Stagg's presentation. He did imagine what would be like to kiss Iris, but this, this was no imagination and this was real. The heat and passion in the kiss was unreal, he could feel her lips on his start a fire inside him. Something that was completely burning him apart.

 **"Wow"** That's all that Barry could say after they pulled away.

 **"Yeah ... wow"** Caitlin could not believe she did that. She wanted to run, to scream, to just go hide under a rock **"I'm sorry, that was … inappropriate"** she tried to excuse herself turning away from him as if she was ashamed of her own decisions.

Before she could completely turn away, she felt the hand that was on her waist pulling her back in. This kiss was different from the other. It was passionate, longing, needing. Something she had failed to feel for anyone else in her life. It felt so good and so right that it baffled her mind, as drunk as she was at the time. They kissed for what seemed again like hours, but were only a few minutes.

 **"Wow"** she muttered. It was her turn to say something about it.

 **"You don't ever have to say sorry for anything with me, Cait. Not for this. Remember when you asked me if I wanted snow? Recall what I told you back then and then see if you need to apologize"** he smiled, one of his smiles that made her giddy inside. She considered it, remembered what he had said back then and kissed him hard. That kiss was short, but it said everything that needed to be said without actually saying it. They finally split, almost not wanting the moment to end and they went to the bedroom where she tried, unsuccessfully to super speed her way out of her dress. Almost ripping it in the process. Barry was not facing her, but he soon heard her pleading voice from behind.

 **"A little help, please? I seem to have been trapped by this demonic dress"**

 **"Uh, yeah"** He turned and noticed that she did manage to at least take the top of her dress off and blushing like mad he flashed her into a pair of pajamas.

 **"There you go again. Saving me from that evil piece of clothing. Thank you for the help, I didn't realize that I was so close to ripping it off. I did want to take it off, but I actually like it enough to not want it ruined"** her face was pouty

 **"Get in bed. Next time maybe you shouldn't down a drink that was especially made to get us wasted with a few gulps"** he smiled looking at her wobbling on her feet.

 **"Hey, did you sneak a peek? At my goods?"** she asked while he was tucking her in.

 **"I wouldn't be much of a superhero if I did"** he blushed. With his super speed it was impossible to not catch a peek, so it was quite difficult for him to dress her with his eyes closed. Thankfully, she didn't pick up on the fact that her change took way longer than normal.

 **"But you deserve a peek for all the good things you do"** she sheepishly grinned at him. He was tempted, but decided that she was in no state to be offering him anything of the sort so he let it go… for now

 **"How about you decide what I deserve and don't deserve when your mental faculties are at full power, Cait. Drink lots of water"** the speedster replied **"It will help with the hangover"**

 **"Thank you for tonight. I sang! It was the most fun I have had in ages, well besides that snowball fight at Christmas. That was amazing too"** she smiled so brightly it made his heart flutter .

 **"Anytime, Cait. Anytime"** he gave her one of his patented goofy smiled.

 **"Barry?"** a question came

 **"Yes?"** he replied looking at her. Caitlin was fighting with her inner shyness about what she should do **" _I don't really want him to go_. _Then tell him to stay. Won't he think ill of me, if I ask him to stay?_ _You don't know until you ask him. Come on Live a little._ "** The alcohol in her system made the inner discussion that she had with herself happen in less than what it would take a normal human to blink, but she did come to a conclusion. She wanted to risk it; she didn't want him to leave.

 **"Can you stay?"** She asked with a certain fear in her eyes, a fear that Barry had never seen before. Then his mind actually computed what she asked.

 **"Wait, you mean ... stay as in … stay?"** The fact that he was talking in sentence fragments made him laugh at himself for sounding like Felicity.

 **"Yes, I can see you`re a bit wasted yourself. So, stay"** She smiled showing him the empty place on her bed.

 **"Um, be right back"** he flashed home and came back dressed in something he could sleep in. He got into the bed with her holding her gently.

 **"Did you seriously speed back here in pair of shorts? If you get sick I am going to be so pissed at you"** she quipped.

 **"No. I brought a bag and changed in the living room. I know what you'd do if I get sick"** he smiled and kissed her forehead. **"Good night, Cait"**

 **"Good night, Barry"** She cuddled in his arms and fell asleep. Barry wasn't that drunk, but he was exhausted. Trying to change Caitlin with his eyes closed was something he would rather not do again. Changing her with his eyes open… well that would be something else. He smiled to himself, chuckling that he had actually think about that and fell asleep.

The next morning she woke up to the smell off coffee and to the breathing of someone in her bed **" _What the hell happened last night?"_** she asked herself seeing the room all ruffled. **" _Oh, wait, who …"_** She turned slowly to see Barry Allen's green eyes looking at her.

 **"Good morning, Cait " her face turned bright red " _Oh god, what did I do last night with Barry?"_** that was the first thing that came to mind, that coupled to the fact that the room was all ruffled, the bed was the same, but then she realized she was completely clothed and her pajamas were intact **"I know I'm that good looking in the morning, but to leave the great Dr. Snow speechless, I didn't think I would see the day" he smiled**

 **"Good morning, Barry"** she finally managed to articulate. She felt her throat dry and her voice coarse.

 **"Dry throat?"** he smiled **"Here, drink this. Did you sleep all right?"** he held out a glass of water as she was sitting up

 **"Uh, had no idea Killer Flash was that effective"** she groaned standing up **"Yes, I actually did"** she smiled remembering the kisses and the fact that she asked him to sleep over that night. The haziness was going away and she kind of felt relief that nothing happened.

 **"Good, I made coffee"** Barry got up from the bed. He was still wearing just the shorts.

 **"I'll be right there. I just need to wash up and change"** turning and going into the bathroom

This feeling was something that was something almost forgotten by her. Someone greeting her good morning with a hot brew of coffee and a smile on his face. The gentle embrace of the night before, the fact that she felt safe and … protected. It was strange she had never known that she needed to feel protected. The great Frost, the fastest woman alive, needed to feel protected. But not by anyone … but by _him._ She looked in the mirror and saw the bright smile she dawned. She had forgotten the last time she had seen such a shining face looking back at her from the mirror.

When she went back to the kitchen, Barry was still there, shirtless, cooking pancakes. He had been doing so for quite a while 6 stacks of 10 were neatly put on the counter with the last pancake fitting nicely in the last stack.

 **"There we go. What syrup do you want and where do you keep it?"** She thought for a bit and the replied

 **"I love maple syrup, but I don't think I have any"** she frowned. She sat down and felt a familiar gust of wind and he was back smiling with a large jug of maple syrup in his hand.

"Well, I guess now you do. Eat up, you'll need energy to recover from that alcohol you downed last night. I know we can down almost anything and not get drunk, but with 3 shots of Killer Flash? That was brave of you and maybe a bit reckless" She smiled knowing he actually ran out shirtless to buy her Maple Syrup and chuckled

 **"Sorry I got that drunk last night, I didn't think I'd make a fool of myself on our first date"** her eyes went wide at realizing what she said, then she calmed down waiting for a response.

 **"So it was a date now huh? " Barry smirked at her "Don't worry about it. Drunk Cait is fun, also really cute"** she started to blush harder **"Hey, if you don't stop blushing I'm going to have to call you the scarlet speedster"**

 **"Yes, yes it was. What do you mean Drunk me? Are you saying normal me is neither fun nor cute?"** She pouted. He came close to her and replied bluntly

 **"This should answer your question"** as he held her close and kissed her. She did not back off, she deepened the kiss holding him tight.

 **"You know, we should do this more often"** She finally managed to speak breaking the kiss and trying to slow the heart that was now almost beating out of her chest.

 **"What? Kissing, getting hammered or sleeping together?"** He started to laugh

 **"All of the above"** she answered, leaving Barry with his jaw hanging **"Just kidding"** his face frowned when she said that **"let's leave out the being hammered part"** They both started to laugh at her misfortune last night, but at the incredible luck that had befallen them both, who knew Killer Flash would actually work at something else than getting them hammered. As they finished eating, she looked at the clock

 **"We need to get to STAR. We're almost late"** a comment left her lips

 **"Almost doesn't mean anything, for two speedsters"** He grinned as they both changed instantly into their work clothes. **"Race you?"**

 **"With me in heels and a tight skirt? For real? I didn't even get a skirt with zippers"** She whined

 **"You are perfectly right. Your beauty needs to be preserved"** he grinned grabbing her in his arms as they sped toward STAR Labs.


	15. Acceleration

They flashed to the Cortex making it just in time as to not be late and Barry put Caitlin down. The smiles were visible on their faces, but they soon disappeared when they saw Wells and Cisco. The engineer had a guilty look on his face and Wells looked like he was just about to kill him with his glare.

 **"What happened here?"** Barry asked breaking the uncomfortable silence in the room.

 **"How about I let Mr. Ramon here explain"** Wells turned and entered the engineering section of the cortex

 **"Hartley is no longer in the pipeline"** Cisco said now managing to look up at the two

 **"Wait, what happened? How did he escape?"** Caitlin interjected

 **"He didn't escape. I was stupid enough to let him out"** the engineer said with a blank face

 **"Wait, why did you do that?"** Barry could not believe what he was hearing.

 **"He had information on Ronnie. But I was too stupid to realize that he had an escape plan"** the engineer managed to articulate

 **"Cisco, I thought I told you to leave it. He is not Ronnie anymore"** Caitlin told the engineer with wide eyes

 **"Yes, I know. That's because he is actually Professor Stein. Last night with Hartley we went through the security footage outside STAR. The professor came to STAR labs with a briefcase, and at the time of the incident he was holding something in his hands. In the flash of the explosion I saw Ronnie and Professor Stein and after the blast and later on when I saw the reports on the burning man, we just saw Ronnie. I think the two got merged together somehow because of the object he was holding"** Cisco explained his findings.

 **"Cisco, this almost is worth letting Hartley free for. If this lead pans out, my friend we might be able to find out what truly happened that night"** Barry replied with a happy tone in his voice totally surprising Caitlin.

 **"How can you say that, Barry? Hartley will try to go after Dr. Wells again"** she managed to articulate even though now she had a knot in her throat

 **"Caitlin, we both know how much you care for your brother, all right? If Hartley decides to make another move, we'll just catch him again. Although I doubt he will be a problem because he doesn't have his gauntlets now, so unless he tried to throw stones at Dr. Wells' mansion, I think we're safe"** The speedster said pretty bluntly

 **"I'm sorry"** Cisco managed to mutter but he was cut off from a hug given to him by Caitlin

 **"You idiot. He could have killed you. Thank you nonetheless for taking that big of a risk for me"** she told him.

 **"Now we have something else to go on when looking for Firestorm"** Barry said smiling. **"Well, with all this settled, I actually did some work last night. I have something to show you"** Harrison told them **"This is the particulate that Shawna Baez leaves behind when she's teleporting. As you both have noticed it moves with a superior speed compared to both of you, but look what happens when I remove light completely from the equation"**

 **"The particles completely stop moving"** they both replied.

 **"Precisely, which means that she can only teleport when she can see. She needs to be in visual range of the place she wants to teleport to, which means you need to get her into a place with no light"** Dr. Wells offered them a solution

 **"So her powers do have limits. That's good to know"** Barry smiled. His phone started to ring and he went to take it. Caitlin could saw his face drop from a smile into a shocked look **"I need to get to Iron Heights. My dad's been stabbed"**

 **"I'm coming with you"** Caitlin stood up

 **"You don't need to come"** He tried to convince otherwise, but … he should have known better. Caitlin was not someone to mess with as long as she had something on her mind and the look she was giving him was telling.

 **"I want to come with you"** she smiled. Barry took her in his arms and flashed them both to the prison. They got through the checkpoints quite fast because Joe was with them. He was a regular at the prison but the two did not pick up on that.

Henry Allen was in a bed in the surgical wing. His wound wasn't severe, but Barry recognized the look of a beating. His left eye was swollen, he had a knuckle imprint on his jaw and a large bandage that he could see under his third rib. He assessed immediately that the wounds were not life threatening and his panicked state started to diminish.

 **"I see you calmed down a bit. You did a once over on him and realized the wounds aren't that severe didn't you?"** Caitlin asked

 **"How did you know?"** he smiled and both Henry and Joe picked up on that.

 **"Because that's what I would have done"** They approached the bed, Caitlin staying a bit behind to talk to Joe.

 **"Hi dad. What happened to you?"** Barry asked.

 **"Hi, slugger. Nothing important. I guess this would be a warning not to ask about Marcus Stockheimer's business"** Henry smiled weakly at his son.

 **"Why did you even try to do that?"** Barry beamed at his father. **"You said it was safe for you in there now I see you all beat up and with a stab wound?"**

 **"Calm down Barry. I'm fine. I just thought I could ask around for information after Clay parker managed to escape"** the man tried to defend himself

 **"Dad. I told you to stop"** Barry was almost screaming at Henry.

 **"Barry, your dad called us with enough information to find Clay and Shawna. Also managed to foil the big heist Stockheimer was planning. He did well."** Joe replied

 **"You two kept working together and you didn't tell me?"** asked Barry with an annoyed tone.

 **"Barry, why are you being so stubborn. I did it to help you"** Henry Allen told his son

 **"You getting stabbed and beaten is not helping me, dad"** the speedster replied.

 **"Look. I don't get to feel useful very much in here. This was just one of the ways that I could help my son"** Henry said with a sad look on his face.

 **"Barry. His life is not threatened by his injuries and he managed to give us a lead. How about you actually thank him for risking that life to help us with OUR case, instead of being a child and throwing a tantrum, hmm? Have a bit of perspective"** Caitlin was on the sidelines till now, but she was getting a bit annoyed at Barry who could only see the bad about what Henry did, not the fact that he risked his life, just so he could feel useful for his son. Barry did not understand at first why Caitlin was annoyed at him. Then he saw the smile on his dad's face, as battered as he was and it all became crystal clear to him. His dad was being useful and it made his day.

 **"At least there's someone here who gets it. Hello, Dr. Snow. Nice to see you again"** Henry replied

 **"Dr. Allen. While I do appreciate you helping us, maybe it would be best if you be a bit more careful and maybe do not get shanked next time?"** she told him with a chuckle. The man nodded and gave her a large smile.

 **"Dad, tell me who did this to you?"** Barry interjected.

 **"How would that help you, Barry?"** he asked

 **"You want to help? Tell me who"** Barry beamed. Caitlin already kind of guesses what he had planned so she decided to get some information for herself.

 **"One of Marcus's boys. Julius"** the answer came

 **"Will you excuse me for a bit? I need to go to the bathroom"** Caitlin said as she got off the bed railing. The two started to talk and in less than a minute, the alarms started blaring, but that didn't take long. Maybe 5 minutes and then they were quiet again. Caitlin entered the room setting her skirt **"Well that was annoying. I didn't know lockdowns closed the bathrooms as well"** she gave a weak smile, almost like a grimace

 **"Not so clean here huh?"** Barry asked

 **"Nope. Not at all"** she stated. A guard came into the room after a few minutes.

 **"Is everyone all right in here?"** he asked

 **"Yes"** Joe answered. **"What was that about?"**

 **"Frost caught one of Marcus's boys trying to escape out of the prison. Oh well, another 10 years added to his prison sentence. Can't say I'm sad for the poor bastard"** The guard explained and Joe smirked. Barry got up from his father bed ready to leave and mouthed a **"** _thank you_ **"** to Caitlin who nodded. Henry managed to catch up on this exchange, but didn't think anything of it continuing to talk to Joe in a low voice.

 **"So, she's here again huh? I understand coming for a police business, but … coming with Barry to visit me?"** Henry was rather surprised

 **"I don't know. I wasn't there when he got the call so I couldn't tell you what happened"** Joe answered.

 **"Those two look like they`re joined at the hip sometimes"** Henry smiled

 **"You know, sometimes I could swear that's exactly the case. She even came over and helped us with the Christmas party"** Joe told Henry who was visibly surprised.

 **"Get well soon dad, we need to get back to STAR, see if we can use the information that got you stabbed to stop the heists"** Barry told his dad and gave him a hug

 **"Take care, Dr. Allen"** Caitlin spoke.

 **"Goodbye, slugger and thank you for coming to visit, Dr. Snow"** Henry replied. The two speedsters got out from the prison and flashed back to STAR as soon as nobody could see them. Everything took about an hour because of the multitude of checkpoints they had to go through when exiting.

 **"I'm guessing Julius didn't really try to escape, did he?"** Barry asked turning toward Caitlin as they walked from the entrance to the Cortex.

 **"How did you guess?"** She smiled

 **"Because that's what I would have done. You took him out of the prison in the first place to ask him some questions, but you left him there for the guards to find, just so he could get an extension to his stay. So what did you find out?"** Caitlin was taken aback by what he had just told her, because without actually realizing it she did exactly as described

 **"The heist that they were supposed to pull, it involves a money truck that is coming from the Federal Reserve Bank in St. Louis. It should be here in the next hour. Which means, if Shauna and Clay still want that money, they will probably be there"** Caitlin explained to him

 **"Then so will we, partner"** Barry smiled brightly at Caitlin. **"Thank you"** kissing her hand and letting his lips linger on her soft skin.

 **"You are welcome. I don't just break people out of prison for anyone"** she felt the fire going up from her hand to her face, hoping that her blush wouldn't be so visible to the others.

An hour later, they were both trailing the money truck trying to be as low key as possible hoping Shawna and Clay would show up and surely they did.

 **"Remember, you need to take her somewhere that's dark"** Cisco reminded them through the intercom.

 **"There is nowhere near here that would be remotely without light"** Barry replied

 **"Barry, it doesn't need to be dark. What if you distract her and I just knock her out. Or at least cover her vision so she can't teleport out?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"Yep. That sounds like a plan. Let's go, Frost"** the speedster agreed giving her a smile

Shawna saw the superheroes in advance right after she teleported the third time with her hands full of bags of money back to the car. As they were running on each side of the car she teleported out to distract them. She kept jumping from one place to the other while the Flash was right on her time each time, every time.

Frost was watching her movements, trying to anticipate where she will jump next. Her reflexes were impressive. She managed to avoid the Flash catching her several times and the time he did manage to touch her he got teleported with her visibly being dazed because of the trip. After a while she got the pattern of Shawna's movements and managed to be in one place before her. As Shawna turned toward Frost she was met with a fist to the chin, making her black out.

 **"I'm glad we discussed you do that. I couldn't hit a woman"** Barry said truthfully.

 **"Good. But I surely can"** she looked around and noticed Clay's car was gone. **"He left"** She stated bluntly

 **"I'll have Joe put an APB on him. We know he's not our metahuman, the police can take care of him now"** Barry replied as he took Shawna and they both sped toward STAR. A few minutes later they put her in a cell in the pipeline as she managed to wake up

 **"He left you"** Caitlin stated bluntly

 **"You know what the stupid thing is?"** she sighed **"I still love him, I know him leaving should tell me something, but it doesn't"** They closed the pipeline and head back to the cortex where Cisco was waiting for them. Harrison Wells was nowhere to be found.

 **"Hey guys, good job out there"** he congratulated the two **"I have some other news as well. Remember those injuries at Mercury Labs which you had me look into?"**

 **"Yeah, the ones that could only be caused by a speedster?"** Barry asked

 **"Those. See, that level in Mercury is a secure floor. Nobody should be able to get in there. You didn't have any sort of radiation detector with you when you went over the crime scene, right?"** the engineer explained

 **"No, not at the scene, why?"** Caitlin answered

 **"Because the cell samples you brought back from the men that died, were exposed to tachyons. Their tissues were saturated with them. I don't know if that's just true for the samples or for the hole bodies, but tachyons are not a common particle"** Cisco answered.

 **"Superluminal particles are hardly common"** Caitlin answered **"But, who would need the tachyon device, those types of particles don't have a practical usage yet. All their applications are still theoretical, that's why the device was constructed in the first place"**

 **"I think I can build something that will trap our rogue speedster though"** Cisco spoke his mind to his team

 **"How can you do that?"** Frost asked

 **"An EM Field. Basically a superconductor creating a spherical field with a large intensity that will stop anything that tries to get out of it by vibrating at a very high frequency"** Cisco continued

 **"Dude, are you seriously talking about a force field?"** Barry was surprised at what Cisco was saying.

 **"Well, yes. What? Oh, don't get geeky on me. It's not a Star Trek force field"** the engineer sighed seeing Barry excited.

 **"If we could catch him… that would be awesome"** the speedster spoke

 **"I will need some time to build the whole contraption or at least to see what I need for it. I doubt there's anything that we can do more tonight. You two can go home, I have work to do " Cisco replied to the two. As he finished he saw Barry flash out of the Cortex and then back in with a box of donuts, a pizza and a coffee from Jitters.**

 **"This should help you get through the night. Thank you, Cisco"** the engineer was surprised and excited as well

 **"Dude. The guy killed your mother. I want him in the pipeline where he can't hurt anyone ever again. No need to thank me. We'll catch that bastard. See you tomorrow"** he responded while taking the food and the coffee back to his lab. Caitlin and Barry started to walk toward the exit as they were talking.

 **"It's crazy huh? The guy left her there and she still loves him"** Caitlin said with a sad tone in her voice

 **"Some people are just worth being crazy for"** Barry spoke and his eyes were looking straight at her.

 **"Hey, I'm sorry again if I was such a drunken mess the other night"** Caitlin managed to apologize

 **"Actually it was pretty fun. I got to see yet another different side of Caitlin Snow"** he smiled toward her.

 **"Yes, yes it was and I got to finally hear you sing. You have a pretty nice voice, Barry Allen"** she winked at him. Barry didn't know what to do with himself. It was the first time he was confronted with this side of hers. Playful, flirty, open and happy. He started to blush while she said that.

 **"You know what? I think people were pretty much right about you and me"** he replied trying to control the burn that was slowly moving across his cheeks

 **"What do you mean?"** she asked with a little surprise on her face

 **"Both of us have been hung up on people or things for way too long"** the answer came and it was totally unexpected for her.

 **"Then maybe it's time to move on. Find someone new to be crazy about"** she smiled and took his hand. **"And maybe, just maybe, we are lucky enough not to have to even look farther than in front of our faces. Isn't that so, Mr. Allen?"**

 **"Yes, Dr. Snow. You are perfectly right. I'm pretty sure we don't"** he smiled holding her hand as they finally reached the parking lot where her car was. Without much thought he gently put his hand around her waist and kissed her, prompting her to put her hands around his neck to deepen the kiss. It was beautiful, almost like sparks flying everywhere, the feeling of heat and energy was not something you could describe. As they pulled out of the kiss Caitlin managed to mutter a few words.

 **"This isn't the best place, there are cameras outside the labs you know"** she smiled. Since they didn't know what they were at the moment, they decided not to let anyone else know about anything until they were sure themselves about what they wanted.

 ** _"This isn't the best place"_** the words sounded in his head like church bells. Something so familiar about them. He fell to the ground while holding his forehead. Images pouring into his mind, their source unknown.

At first, there were him and Caitlin kissing, but it was in front of the precinct, then there was a large round thing, it looked like a bubble and he saw the yellow man in it. Then he saw Dr. Wells tinkering with the machine, and when Cisco came in and caught him, Wells sat up and pushed a vibrating hand through his chest leaving him motionless. Then an image of someone resembling Clyde Mardon who was pushing a tsunami at the city appeared. Caitlin crying when the burning man told her he doesn't know her. Wells in the same white room he had seen before but this time with a wall opened and the yellow suit perched up on it all ending with an image of an unfamiliar spot, a bridge, some pine trees and a sign. **"STARLING CITY – 15 miles "**

 **"Barry!"** Caitlin yelled at him. His nose was beginning to bleed. Without thinking twice, she slapped him as hard as he could. The impact of her hand broke him out of the stream of memories yanking him back to reality **"Are you all right? What is going on with you?"** she asked with a serious face, but Barry could see in her eyes that his episode had seriously scared her.

 **"It's … nothing. Just having headaches"** He tried to lie, but he got called out the next moment, Caitlin knowing pretty well that something was severely wrong when seizures were involved.

 **"Barry Allen, headaches do not cause seizures or this"** she showed him some of the blood that was running down his face from his nose **"I'm not going to ask again. What is wrong with you? The truth this time"** Her voice was demanding and authoritative. Barry felt almost compelled to tell her the absolute truth. Her face also said way more, she was extremely worried about him.

 **"I don't know. Don't tell anyone what I'm about to tell you"** she nodded but also rolled her eyes at the idea that she would tell something to anyone else, especially something that was told to her in confidence **"I have been getting flashes of events. Sometimes they are from the future, sometimes from the past, but not the same past, like a … different past. A parallel past and present and future. Something I cannot explain but some of the things I did see, were / are true and they have happened exactly as I see them in my flashes"**

 **"Wait … are you saying that you can see the future?"** she asked incredulously

 **"I don't know what I can see. I could say I have glimpses of the future, except some of the thing I see have been false. It always comes with headaches and they are always triggered by something"** the speedster told her as much as he knew at the time

 **"What triggered it now?"** the question came

 **"Words. "This isn't the best place". That's was the trigger at this time"** he answered still with his hand on his head.

 **"Back inside with you, Mister. I want to see what's going on in that noggin of yours"** she ordered with a stern voice. He tried to get up but the dizziness made him fall back down. Caitlin, seeing that he could barely move because of the intensity of the headache, flashed him to a bed in the medical bay. He was getting better, but she still insisted to give him a complete physical, which yielded nothing, he was in perfect health.

 **"Since when has this been happening, Barry?"** he could see that she was worried about him, pacing around the cortex as he got up from the bed.

 **"Since before you woke up. Last time I saw some things. Some of them couldn't be and some of them were true. Like for example, I knew Eddie and Iris had been dating before I actually saw them kiss at Jitters"** he said bluntly not knowing how she would take it.

 **"I assume you ran tests on yourself the last time this happened?"** she asked immediately

 **"No, not a complete physical like now, but the vitals were fine. The first time I didn't have this migraine or the blood flowing from my nose. It all just seemed to be nothing short of a normal headache"** the speedster told her truthfully.

 **"Are you all right?"** she asked with a bit of worry in her voice.

 **"Yea. Just a bit dizzy"** he replied giving her a weak smile.

 **"Ok. This is quite out there. You were seeing images of things about to happen. Would it be the result of the lightning strike?"** she asked talking to herself **"I have to see what you saw"**

 **"I don't think that's possible"** he answered.

 **"What about our dreamscape? You managed to make things show up there that were from your memories"** she remembered him being able to project images from his mind there

 **"I could try, but that would require that we sleep together and we have physical contact. You already know that, Cait"** he smiled weakly as he was trying to suppress the pain of his headache.

 **"Well then I guess I know where you`re sleeping tonight"** She winked at him **"Come on, I can cook us some lasagna, maybe watch a movie or something"**

 **"Why Dr. Snow, are you actually asking me out on a second date in the comfort of your own home?"** Barry smirked

 **"Well, our first date did not turn out so well, you know, with me spilling the contents of my stomach on the sidewalk and stuff. So yes, that's precisely what I'm inviting you to"** her mind backtracked to last night, part of which was still sadly missing but with a large smile on her face

 **"Summer lovin' "** he began singing

 **"Oh god"** her face turned all red as he looked at her grinning. **"So… yes or no?"**

 **"I doubt that I would ever say no when you invite me out on a date, Cait. You should know by now that I enjoy your company. So that's a very large and definitive yes"** Barry smiled. She extended a hand to him.

 **"Shall we go then?"** he nodded, but before she managed to tell him that she wanted to drive, they were already at her door. She smiled **"I was about to suggest we take the car, but this works too"** She took out the key and they went inside. She flashed out and came back dressed in a white t-shirt with a pair of dark blue pants and some flops. Barry went to the bathroom for literally half a second and came out with a pair of shorts and a flash T-shirt.

 **"So? What do you need me to do?"** He asked surprising her.

 **"You? Didn't I just say I would cook?"** Caitlin smiled at his offer.

 **"It's more fun to cook together, besides you know me, I always like to help"** His quirky smile gave her a chill down her spine.

The two took their time with the cooking. It would have been done in an instant and put in the oven to cook, but instead they had fun with it. They started to throw food at each other both still careful not to make the house too much of a mess, they had some wine, which of course it wouldn't have any sort of effect on them, but Caitlin enjoyed seeing Barry act like a total snob in relation to a glass of wine.

They both knew that they had to cook an simply impossible amount of lasagna to cover up the day's caloric requirements, so while she went and changed her t shirt which was dotted with flour, he went out and bought 6 boxes of donuts and 2 tubs of ice cream which he deposited in the kitchen to be used as desert after they finished the main course.

Caitlin stood in the doorway after she changed. She looked at Barry fuss over the lasagna, then eat a donut or two, wash plates and cutlery for the table. It was something very different for her. She had always mostly been alone, she and Ronnie would come home at different times, she would always leave food for him in the fridge and he would always buy groceries for what he wanted to eat, but this? It was the first time when she was with someone who made her feel so happy when doing such common things as cooking a plate of lasagna.

The lasagna was finally ready so they sat down and ate, picking food off each other's plate in an annoying but cute version of a food fight. They would use their super speed to snatch small piece of food of each other's plate at one point even engaging in a mock fork fight for the last pieces of food on their plates. Caitlin was right though, the lasagna was not enough, so they started to munch on donuts until those were done too. After they ate this time they used their speed to clean the kitchen, for some reason both of them did not enjoy cleaning all that slow, not that it bothered them.

 **"So what do you want to watch?"** Barry asked bringing the two tubs of ice cream and putting them on the small coffee table in front of the couch. **"I brought Lady and the tramp, the lion king, jungle book and of course how we not have the most iconic movie for our frosty lady superhero, Frozen"** Caitlin face palmed, but you could see the smile on her face.

 **"Barry, if I ever catch you calling me Elsa, you will get your mouth stuffed with a snowball and your ass literally frozen this time"** she quipped trying to look irritated but failing miserably **"Why did you bring only Disney movies though?"**

 **"You told me you liked them, besides you know there is absolutely no issue with me running back home and grabbing something else"** he smiled

 **"What would you prefer?"** she asked liking all the movies

 **"I have a let's say special connection with the lion king. I used to watch it with my mother when I was sick. It reminds me of her"** Barry spoke and his face frowned slightly returning to normal

 **"Then that is what we will watch"** she proclaimed, coming up to him and slowly kissing him as his hands drew her closer to his body. He loved the feeling of her body touching his, her soft lips with a touch of strawberry sometimes, sometimes mint were like fire on his own lips. The kiss lasted way a short time, but for them it felt like hours, their hearts racing in their chests.

The two sat on the couch, Barry with a hand around her waist and her leaning against him with a duvet on her legs, her head on his shoulder. She usually needed the duvet, but found out that with Barry around, the heat that she felt when in his embrace would make her get rid of it. Their free hands were simply resting one in another, their fingers intertwined. It was the greatest feeling in the world as Barry found himself thinking more than once **" _I could get used to this"._**

As the movie finished, they were both visibly tired, almost falling asleep. So they went to the bedroom and changed into different attire. One that was more suitable for sleeping. Barry with his usual black shorts and nothing for a t-shirt and Caitlin with a pair of red shorts and a tank top. They both climbed into bed like they had been doing that for a long, long time, Caitlin listening to his heart with her head on his chest while his left arm held her close. Their fingers intertwined once again as Barry spoke softly.

 **"Good night, Cait"**

 **"Good night, Barry"** she replied

They met in the usual spot. In front of the log cabin, the scenery had been unchanged since the Killer Frost incident and it was like always, a sunny summer afternoon.

 ** _"And we're back"_ **he said **" _You would think that after spending 6 months in here, you would get tired of the place and change the scenery"_ **

**_"I actually like the landscape, its serene, beautiful, calming, the wind is really nice and the sun is shining. Besides, you like it too, since it comes from your head"_ **She smiled, then became a bit more serious. **" _Ok so, what did you see?"_** Barry tried to concentrate and to his surprise the images started to appear.

 ** _"Ok. Wow. This works now. The last time I tried nothing appeared. It was like the images were buried in a part of my brain that didn't want to surface"_** he looked rather shocked at that.

Caitlin stood there with her mouth open in surprise. She saw Killer Frost, Barry and Eddie, but maybe the most surprising were the images of Harrison Wells. Her boss, the man she had been working for quite a long time and which she trusted, standing up from his chair and having a smirk on his face.

 ** _"How, what …"_** she managed to articulate after a while.

 ** _"I don't know, Cait. I have no idea what these images are. But this is how I knew that Eddie and Iris were together, long before they told me"_ **he continued sitting down on a blanket on the grass **" _I thought it was stupid, but then the fact was confirmed to me"_ **She sat down next to him while the images came closer to them. **" _I'm not saying these are true, but they at least make me wonder"_**

 ** _"What are you wondering about?"_** she saw him with a pensive face

 ** _"That we don't really know anything about Dr. Wells. I mean he could be paralyzed or he could be faking it. You know as good as me that the only way to know for sure is to have an X Ray of his spine and see if there is any damage"_ **Barry answered

 ** _"I haven't seen any sort of films anywhere. But I always took him at his word._ _I've never actually searched for them"_** she answered looking at the static image in front of her. He could see the confusion on her face.

 ** _"See why I didn't tell you about these? They are difficult to believe, but until now I actually trusted Dr. Wells wanted what's best for us. Now… I'm not so sure anymore_ " **the speedster explained himself to her. He didn't tell her not because he wanted to lie or to withhold information from his partner. She knew also that that wasn't the case.

 ** _"I know what you mean. For now let's just keep this to ourselves. If you have more flashes well take care of them then. All we have are some images that are coming from the mind of someone that was struck by lightning. We have no idea if they are true or false_ "** she spoke her mind openly.

 ** _"We should actually try to prove them right or wrong. I know we haven't dug up a lot on Dr. Wells, but we should at least try"_ **he concluded and she agreed. They both had trusted that man with their lives, if there was indeed something they could do was at least to prove those images were false.

After this small talk, they just sat in the sun enjoying each other's company. Barry was worried that she would not remember all of this in the morning. This dreamscape talk sometimes was … lacking. The memories would not stick when they would wake up, but I guess he would see that when they would wake up.

They both woke up at the same time, they decided to take the escape route out of the dreamscape and they had woken up early, despite that they both felt very rested and energized.

 **"Good morning, Cait"** Barry smiled at her, putting aside one of her hair strands that were on her face **"What do you remember?"**

 **"Good morning, Barry"** she returned the smile keeping his hand on her face for a moment longer. **"Everything"**

 **"Well that's new. The other talks we had you could only remember bits and pieces"** he answered.

 **"Yes, I've noticed that, but now I remember everything. So… what do we do about it, that's the actual question"** Barry could see that she was pretty confused about the correct course of action that had to be taken

 **"For now we keep this to ourselves and try to prove what I saw was wrong. If we can't we can take it from there. Deal?"** he told her while sitting up on the bed side.

 **"Deal"** she responded talking his hand **"Partner"**


	16. Fission

After the last time the man in the yellow suit, which had been so graciously dubbed by Cisco as the Reverse Flash, had paid him a visit, Joe decided that he needed to share his doubts with Barry. They both began gathering evidence on Harrison Wells, but it was going to slow. Then the detective enlisted the Cisco's help as well. The engineer was reluctant to believe that Dr. Wells had did anything wrong, pointing out multiple times that the man made him what he is today and helped him advance his career.

Joe understood that, but he was also a cop. He told Cisco flat out that everyone would try to protect people they love or they admire, even though he had definitive evidence that they were murderers. He didn't ask for Cisco to believe him, just to help him find out what really happened that night. The two went to the house the Allen family used to live back then and Cisco managed to get some still images of a mirror that had not been moved for a long time. While doing that with some help from Joe they found dried blood underneath one of the wallpapers. It was more than they bargained for, but the blood could have no relation to Barry's family. Still, they had to try.

Early morning, Barry and Caitlin were called to the scene of a crime that had happened in the Mercury Labs building. A scientist was burned to death while going toward the parking lot by something that some witnesses described as being a Burning Man. Bette, who was the scene as the CCPD bomb expert told then that it wasn't a bomb blast, it was more like a stream of intense heat, similar to Napalm more than an explosion, but holding such extreme temperature that some of the flesh of the man simply disintegrated. They didn't find much evidence, assuming the fire was hot enough to literally carbonize the corpse, any sort of residual matter would have been either calcified or burned. They went back to STAR to assess the problem.

 **"So ... why would Martin Stein be walking around in Ronnie's body?"** she asked

 **"I suspect its simple Darwinian theory. The newly formed organism selected the best parts of the two when it was created. Ronnie's body and Stein's mind"** Wells continued **"However that is, he hurt an innocent man and we have hunted Metas that did way less than this. Not by much, but you get the point I'm trying to make"**

 **"That's what we do"** Barry added **"There is no point to change our pattern now, even if one of the people we are supposed to hunt is related to us. Although in this case I'm not even sure that applies"**

 **"Caitlin, are you on board with what needs to be done to capture him if he doesn't come with us willingly?"** Wells asked with a cold face.

 **"Yes. He is no longer Ronnie. He is Martin Stein in Ronnie's body, besides, even if it was Ronnie by some accident, I would still want him captured just so I could see if I can help him regain his mind. The actions that are described here somehow don't strike me as something a sane person would do"** She answered, but Barry could see on her face that she was still hurting inside. Barry approached her and took her hand holding it gently in his own.

 **"Don't worry, Cait. We'll find them. I read somewhere that Quentin Quail was a colleague of Professor Stein in some of the projects at Mercury. If Stein is indeed in control he might be trying to figure out what happened to him"** Barry pitched in **"What does he look like?"**

 **"That is Professor Martin Stein"** Wells pointed to a picture that he brought up on the monitors.

 **"Wait, that's him? I have met him before. Before the night of the particle accelerator explosion. We were talking science and he mentioned that he had to leave his wife behind to come to STAR Labs. He did so quite early, I bumped into him when I was trying to get to the station after Cait dropped me off. He was in quite a hurry to get to the train station"** the young CSI recalled

 **"Then maybe we should go see her"** Caitlin replied.

 **"Yes that is a good idea. Come on we can take the van. Of course it will take longer than you two flashing us there, but it would be a good idea to have it"** Wells added

 **"We'll drive there and you flash to us when we arrive, if you aren't interested in spending time in the van"** Cisco smiled at the two. They agreed and started to look for other clues on the Burning Man's whereabouts. After about 2 hours they received a call. Cisco and Wells had reached the house so they flashed there going to speak with Stein's wife.

 **"Mrs. Stein. We're from STAR Labs. We are helping the CCPD in the case of the disappearance of your husband"** Barry and Caitlin held up their CSI badges.

 **"STAR Labs, Martin was going to STAR Labs before he disappeared"** She replied abruptly **"Come in"** the woman invited them in the house **"I will try to do my best to help you, but I have not seen Martin ever since the Particle Accelerator exploded"**

 **"Look at that"** Wells commented **"A Hawking Award for scientific advancement, I wanted to win that myself. Except he won it three times"**

 **"It takes a special kind of man to make Dr. Wells jealous"** Barry smiled at the aged woman in front of him. **"Tell me, did you see this man in or around your home?"** he gave her a photo of Ronnie

 **"Who… who is he?"** the woman asked visibly disturbed.

 **"A person of interest in your husband's case"** Wells interjected not letting Caitlin or Barry explain more than it was absolutely necessary.

 **"When did you see him?"** Barry asked noticing the way she had started to act

 **"After the accident, I got the feeling that someone was watching me. About a month after Martin disappeared, that young man showed up here"** She sighed **"And he has continued to show up around the house, but with no regularity to his visits. The last time I saw him, I think it was about a week and a half ago, he was in the back yard looking at something"**

 **"Thank you Mrs. Stein, for your time"** Wells replied while heading out the door.

 **"Will you let me know if you find out anything else? I don't mind even if it's bad news, that Martin has died, or anything. At this point I just want to know what happened to him"** she said with hope in her eyes that the two people who had come to her house might actually find her husband

 **"Yes, you will be the first to know if we find anything new"** Caitlin reassured her as they went out. AS the four got closer to the van they started to talk.

 **"I think we have just found out what the connection was. Whatever happened, Martin Stein and Ronnie feel the need to protect the women they love"** Harrison spoke after they were away from the house and nearing their car.

 **"But I haven't seen him around"** Caitlin responded **" _Probably because I was always with Barry"_**

 **"Ronnie might have figured that you know the Flash or even that you're Frost. Considering you have superpowers of your own, it was obvious you didn't need anyone to protect you. So Stein went to protect his significant other instead"** Barry smiled.

 **"Well, this has all the components for a stake out"** Wells said smiling. **"You two can stay if you want, but I don't think that's necessary since we both know that you can get here under 5 seconds if needed. I'll stay here with Cisco and call you when something happens"**

 ** _"We should go to Star and see if we can't find anything on those X rays"_** Barry immediately thought, prompting Caitlin to make a really scared and awkward face for a few seconds then composing herself.

 ** _"Yes we should. But we should really get Cisco"_** she thought and this time it was Barry's turn to look completely baffled.

 ** _"Wait, can you?"_** he looked at her and she nodded responding

 ** _"Yes, apparently I can"_** the reply came

 **"Barry? Caitlin? Did you hear me? You're pretty quiet"** Harrison asked giving them a strange look.

 **"Yes, then we will be at the lab. We need to run some tests"** Caitlin added

 **"Tests? On what?"** the doctor asked surprised.

 **"I have had trouble sleeping the last few days"** Barry lied. He saw the way she was fidgeting and he knew that she was not comfortable lying to Wells **"Could be a side effect of my metabolism, the lightning strike or just plain old insomnia, but I can't afford to be dozing off on the street"** he continued explaining **"eating dirt at 900 mph would be the least of my worries"**

 **"That is a very good point. Ok then, I'll give you a call if something happens"** he waved them off as they sped back to STAR. In the Cortex, they took a good look at each other with surprised faces.

 **"So this is new"** Barry managed to speak **"I heard you say what I hear you say except I didn't actually see you say it"**

 **"I know. Hearing someone else's thoughts is … well really scary" She continued " _I wonder how this works"_** she thought to herself before getting a prompt answer from him

 ** _"I have no idea. However, our brainwaves are the same. I ran an EKG on both of us one time. I think I already mentioned that"_**

 **"That is freaky"** she commented **"But still not helping solve this mystery. Why now? Why not back when we were struck?"**

 **"I think … it's more than that. It's us as people. Before we were basically two strangers. We didn't really think alike and we had nothing going on. That kind of changed and it changed recently"** Barry said with a blush creeping up his face.

 **"I'm glad it did"** she smiled giving him a quick kiss **"So you're saying that the actual motive we can do that now is the fact that we've grown closer?"**

 **"Yes. This bond, for lack of a better word, existed right after the lightning. I think the dreamscape and the fact that we can share dreams is still this part of connection we have. Nevertheless, that was just the lowest level. At the level where we were both strangers"** Barry theorized **"We were not … close before"**

 **"That … kind of makes sense actually. More in a wave physics sort of way more that something biological. We needed to … be in sync. As two strangers that could have never happened, but as we grew closer and started to understand each other, the synchronization started to happen. Which mean this might not even the full power of the bond we share"** she smiled at him brightly. He knew she was sad about Ronnie. He could see her on her face, but he was glad he could still make her smile like that.

 **"Don't worry, Cait. We're going to find out what really happened to Ronnie. At least to give you some peace of mind, All right?"** he came over to her and gave her a hug letting her put her head on his shoulder

 **"Thank you for that, Barry. I needed a hug"** her voice was a bit shaky while she spoke

 ** _"I know. Your face became so much darker and sad after you heard about that explosion that happened this morning and everything that Stein's wife had to say"_** he replied.

 **"Still thank you. I needed a hug"** She knew that he was right. Of course hearing about someone that was walking around in her brother's body, but was not actually him, did indeed make her sad. Her brother was gone and with his help, she managed to remember him as a hero, but now … he was back and she started to feel fear and anguish again.

Cisco and Harrison were in the car waiting. It was already night and they managed to get something to eat on their stake out. Harrison tried to get Cisco to talk about the friend he kept going to help, he had noticed that the engineer was out of the lab more often than usual, but Cisco kept deflecting the questions

 **"So why do you think Ronnie or Professor Stein, whichever he is now, keeps coming back here?"** the engineer asked seeming absentminded

 **"Cisco, we all have that special place we would want to come back to. The place we call home. However, more often than not, Home does not mean a location. For persons who are alone, yes, more than likely. It's the place you feel most safe in. It could be a house, a flat or in the middle of a forest around a fire. Home means a person to most of the rest and in this particular case, Clarissa, is his home, seeing that Martin Stein is in control of Ronnie's body"** Wells answered

 **"So if what Clarissa said was true, then Stein has always been around watching her and keeping her safe"** Cisco then realized **"which is why we're sitting here".** As the two were finishing their meal, they saw Firestorm above the house and landing in the back yard.

 **"I assume you have one of those two on speed dial?"** Wells asked as Cisco was already sending a text to both of them. One word, **Firestorm** , which was all they needed. Flash and Frost were outside of their car in less than a minute.

 **"Where is he?"** Caitlin asked. Both people in the car pointed a finger to the back yard. They sped there and saw the burning man just standing there looking through the window. He didn't seem like he wanted to hurt Clarissa, but he ran when he saw them. The Flash pinned him to a post which was kind of a mistake. Firestorm flew up taking him along for the ride. Frost and the van followed them all the way across the city to an abandoned steel mill where the burning man let the speedster go.

He fell down hitting some girders along the way. Firestorm landed in front of him and threw a fireball at him. Instead of hitting full on, its path was blocked by a newly created ice wall that was now in front of him, which collapsed from the heat. Firestorm tried again only to be blocked a second time by another ice wall, Frost came to help her partner and when firestorm saw her, he flew into the night sky, but before Flash fell, he planted a tracker in the coat pocket of the burning man.

 **"Barry, you ok?"** Caitlin asked with a low voice

 **"I think so, my head hurts and my legs and my back, but"** he managed to stand up **"yeah I think I'm all right"**

 **"I need to see if you didn't break anything, you fell from quite high up"** she hissed at him and he knew that it was pointless arguing.

 ** _"I managed to plant that tracker on him. We can find him now wherever he goes"_** Caitlin looked at him and nodded. This was all very new to them, but, more often than not, it was really handy.

The next morning they followed the tracker underneath a bridge. Clarissa was with them. They thought that she would be helpful in getting to Stein considering they thought Ronnie wasn't in there anymore. They managed to get to Firestorm, Clarissa convincing him to go to STAR Labs to find out what happened to him. After a few hours they were back in the Cortex, Barry agreed to run all the tests they could on him. He knew that it was kind of hard for Caitlin to be around him, because he was not her brother, it was just his body and Martin Stein's mind.

 **"Mr. Allen, you did tell me you were a CSI back when we met, you forgot to mention you`re also a doctor and a biochemist"** Stein spoke while Barry was drawing some blood and monitored his temperature.

 **"I did not forget, Professor. This happened because of the particle accelerator. I somehow shared knowledge with Dr. Snow over there. We were both hit by lightning that night"** Barry explained

 **"Fascinating, that same accident is what got me stuck in Ronald's body. What did you give me anyway? I am more clearheaded than I ever was between the accident and now"** The professor spoke

 **"A cocktail of antipsychotics, antidepressants and mood stabilizers"** Barry responded without taking his eyes from the console

 **"You mean the same type of treatment they give patients with …"** Stein tried to explain

 **"Dissociative Identity Disorder. Yes"**

 **"Bravo, my boy and you say you aren't a doctor? That indeed seems not to be the case from where I'm standing"** Stein smiled at Barry

 **"Cait, get in here for a minute will you?"** Barry called her **"His temperature keep going up. It went up 2 degrees in the last 15 minutes while I was doing my analysis"**

 **"You`re right. This is not something that you see every day, considering his temperature is well above someone with a severe fever"** Caitlin came in and looked sad when looking at Firestorm. **"We need to see why his temperature keeps rising. I'm going to need your help Barry. Also Dr. Wells'"**

 **"So this must be your partner then?"** Stein asked.

 **"Yes, she is also Ronald's sister"** Barry added making Stein raise a brow in surprise

 **"Dr. Caitlin Snow"** she extended a hand **"We're going to try to help you, Dr. Stein"**

 **"I might have an idea about that. Since it was in essence nuclear and cellular fusion that brought together me and Ronald in the first place, we could use a stable fission process to separate myself from him after you manage to stabilize us"** the professor was very blunt about a solution that he might have.

 **"Dr. Stein, let's talk about that. Maybe we can come up with a solution to you heating problem. Barry, Caitlin go see what's happening with his body"** Wells ordered

After about an hour of different tests ran on Firestorm the two scientists got to a most disturbing discovery. The cells in Ronnie's body were rejecting Stein's, that rejection was producing an exothermic reaction. If that reaction turned to a chained one coming from all the cells in his body, then he would go nuclear with a force to obliterate the entire city. Cisco came to the lab himself, and seeing Ronnie there it kind of made him question his sanity, except he presented himself as Martin Stein, which the engineer found freaky.

 **"Dr. Wells this in not something we can ignore. His temperature keeps rising, the Firestorm matrix inside him is unstable, isn't there anything we can do?"** Caitlin asked

 **"He has at the most a couple of hours. I don't know of a way to stop them, unless …" he trailed off**

 **"Unless what?"** Barry took Caitlin's words out of her mouth

 **"Unless the host body was no longer functioning"** he concluded

 **"Wait, what? You want to kill Ronnie?"** both Barry and Caitlin almost jumped.

 **"No, I don't want to kill him, but in this scenario … Ronnie is the host body"**

 **"I don't know how else to stop it and my guess is that if Ronnie and Professor Stein knew the consequences, they would have made this decision without us even discussing it" Wells almost shouted at them**

 **"Can you give us a minute?"** Caitlin asked the others almost silently to get out. She continued after her and Dr. Wells were alone in the room **"I'm not going to do this again. I already lost Ronnie once. You said you have a couple of hours, yes? Then USE THEM to come up with a solution to this problem. You are as smart as that guy over there if not smarter. Get to it!"** the last part was hissed and Wells could see the anger in her eyes, the lightning that was dancing in them was quite intimidating and was a very good tell about her state of mind. While this exchange happened Barry went to see Dr. Stein.

 **"Hey, how you holding up, can I get you anything?"** Barry asked

 **"Well A glass of wine might be nice or ... maybe some beer. I don't know, this is obviously not my body, so ... I could be a person that likes both or none"** the professor gave him a weak smile.

 **"Well it could be worse"** Barry started before Stein cut him off

 **"You mean like turning into a nuclear bomb and turning Central City into a smoking hole in the ground?"** the reply came quite directly.

 **"So you heard? " Barry replied**

 **"No, I did not. Sadly, unstable nuclear fission was always a danger in the transmutation process"** Firestorm replied with a sad look on his face **"I guess advancement sometimes does require the use of one's life as a price to pay the gods"**

 **"My friends will find a way to help you, professor"** the speedster assured him

 **"I remember our meeting, Mr. Allen. You were very excited to go with a girl to STAR Labs to see the particle accelerator come online. I do remember that you mentioned she was not your girlfriend"** the professor smiled at him

 **"I was, but that day proved to be more packed then I thought. I ended up being caught in an investigation of a burglary at STAR and never made it to see the accelerator come online, except maybe from my lab window. That proved quite a show because the only thing I did see was the column of light that went into the clouds before me and Cait got struck by lightning. Well, I do have someone that I consider a girlfriend now, just not the girl that I had mentioned before"** Barry smiled thinking about Caitlin.

 **"You mean Dr. Snow, don't you?"** Stein faintly smiled

 **"How could you guess that? It's not like you've known us for that long"** Barry looked at him quite surprised that the professor was that perceptive

 **"I don't need to be here for long to notice how you two act around each other. Reserved, yet happy. How your faces light up when you see each other. Your secret is safe with me, but let me impart some of what I know with you. Einstein was a great man, not only for his intelligence, but also for his humor. He said once "Any man who drives safely while giving his attention to a pretty girl, is not giving that pretty girl the attention she deserves" If I have learned anything this past year, life is too short not to be lived. I could see from afar how you two act around one another, maybe it's time that you start living, my boy"** The professor grinned at the speedster

In the Gideon room inside STAR Labs, Harrison Wells was standing in front of his Reverse flash suit rubbing the back of his head with quite a worried face.

 **"Gideon, can the tachyon prototype can be converted into a quantum splicer?"**

 **"Yes, Dr. Wells, it is theoretically possible. One warning though, getting rid of the tachyon prototype will significantly push back your original timetable"** the AI replied

 **"My Timetable has no consequence, if Central City disappears in a mushroom cloud. Show me"** Wells ordered the AI which put some schematics up on the screen. After studying them for a while he went back to the cortex to present the solution to the others

 **"I have an idea, it's more like a Hail Mary, but we're going to try it. Cisco, I'm going to need your help"** Wells came in with an excited look in his eyes

 **"What are we building? " Cisco asked knowing that look quite well**

 **"A quantum splicer. Barry, Caitlin, you track Professor Stein. We will call you once we finish"** Wells ordered them.

Cisco and Harrison got to work while Barry and Caitlin were looking for Stein. He had changed clothes so the tracker was still in the lab. Three hours later, they found him heading straight for the badlands at least 50 miles in the middle of nowhere. Minimum safe distance for such a detonation.

 **"He is going to sacrifice himself"** Barry muttered

 **"Are you guys done?"** Caitlin asked while coming into the cortex.

 **"Almost there … and done"** Wells smiled as he was soldering the last wires **"Get this to Professor Stein, Hurry"** Both people sped out of the cortex running through the city and out to the badlands.

 **"Professor Stein, wait. Don't do anything foolish"** Barry yelled

 **"This is a quantum splicer, designed to bombard your atoms with the same type of energy you absorbed in the particle Accelerator explosion, it should separate you. Worst case scenario you explode and die. Best case, you both live and I get to see my brother again, while you get to see your wife"** Caitlin told the professor putting the splicer on his chest.

 **"Let's try it your way then and hope for the best"** Stein said with a hopeful glint in your eyes. **"Go away, now. I can feel the energy building up and I cannot keep it under control no matter how hard I try"** he said as he started to flare up. Flash and Frost zipped away only to be closely followed by a shockwave from an atomic explosion. When the dust cleared, Cisco found that there was no radiation at all from the blast, just the initial shockwave, which our two speedsters managed to outrun. They came back to find Ronnie and Professor Stein separated in the center of a large crater. Barry and Caitlin each grabbed one person and sped to the lab, but unknown to them, a certain general had sent his retrieval teams to grab the two people that were part of Firestorm.

 **"Told you we'd find a way to make this work"** Barry took off his mask and smiled toward Caitlin

 **"Barry, who is … your friend"** Ronnie managed to articulate seeing his face and his name from the memories he had while being pushed back in the back of Stein's mind

 **"This is my partner, Frost. But you know her better as"** Barry tried to be dramatic pushing the button to activate the cosmetics on Frost's earrings, which immediately turned into someone he recognized quite well.

 **"Sis?"** his face was priceless looking at Caitlin in her normal form wearing Frost's suit. **"What … happened to you?"**

 **"It's a long story"** she wanted to keep it all for later

 ** _"Sit with him and tell him what happened the last few months"_** a thought came to her mind **" _You know he will want to know, besides he is your brother and you missed him, don't try to tell me otherwise"_ **She looked at Barry and nodded smiling at him. Ronnie caught onto that

 **"Come on, I'll tell you everything over a hot cup of coffee"** the two left the Cortex, Cisco going back to see the schematics for the quantum splicer in which he was extremely interested in, leaving Professor Stein who managed to change his clothes.

 **"Can I trouble you for a ride, Mr. Allen? I seem to have lost my wallet and I would really want to get home"** the professor asked with a big smile on his face.

 **"Yes, come on, I'll take you home Dr. Stein. It's high time you get to see your wife after such a long while"** They flashed away and in less than two minutes he was in front of his home. His wife Clarissa was ecstatic to see him, thanking Barry over and over again for the return of her husband.

 **"I know I can be a handful, sometimes. But thank you for bringing me home and for everything you and Dr. Snow have done for me and Ronald, Mr. Allen"** He smiled and extended a hand.

 **"You are welcome, Professor. I'm glad what we tried actually worked"** Barry shook his hand and smiled disappearing instantly from view while Stein was left to talk to his wife.

Caitlin and Ronnie went to Jitters to talk, he had found that he was very hungry, apparently they didn't eat properly for a few weeks, so they were talking and he was munching.

 **"So, what's with the ... you know"** he motioned to the earrings

 **"The night the particle accelerator exploded, I was at CCPD helping Barry on a case, that's why you got called back that day to help Dr. Wells. The explosion seeded a storm cloud that hit both of us with one bolt of highly concentrated dark matter lightning. I was in a coma for 9 months, Barry was for 3 and for the rest he stayed behind to take care of me. When I woke up … we discovered we have what could only amount to superpowers"** Caitlin made everything sound so … normal.

 **"Wait … you`re saying Barry spent 6 months trying to wake you up? And what kind of powers? I mean obviously you`re fast"** Ronnie inquired

 **"I have ice powers and I'm fast, Barry is faster than me and yes he did spend 6 months to try to help me wake up. That's about it I guess"** she scratched her head

 **"Really? So the fact that you were talking with your eyes is something normal between you two?"** Ronnie stated the obvious

 **"The lightning … might have had some other side effects"** she mumbled

 **"Like what, Cait?"** she was surprised someone else was calling her that and winced. With her getting used to Ronnie dead, the only other person that had the permission to use that nickname was Barry.

 **"Shared knowledge and ... some other shared things"** she said almost embarrassed. **"The lightning copied our respective experiences and knowledge from one to the other. He's now a doctor, biochemist, geneticist and has all my information, me in return I got his CSI and investigative skills as well as a bunch of other things"**

 **"You know you didn't really answer my initial question, right?"** Ronnie looked at her with an inquisitive face and a smirk

 **"Yes, I know. Let us just say there are many more things that I can share some other times with you"** she told him, half expecting him to start laughing.

 **"I see"** Ronnie looked a bit surprised, but his face relaxed a few moments after **"So ... he's your boyfriend"** he continued to speak with a large smile plastered on his face **"Look at you, ice princess, you finally warmed up to someone or would it be more accurate to say that finally managed to warm you up?"**

 **"Take it whichever way you like, but yes, he is my boyfriend. Just don't mention anything to the others. We're trying to keep it under wraps until we're both sure we are ready to take this further"** Caitlin told her brother who did not manage to get rid of the large smile that was still remained.

 **"I won't tell a soul, but I'm glad you finally found someone that makes you happy. You might not have thought I noticed, but at one point you were acting like you would be alone all your life"** he replied but as he finished his sentence he saw a bunch of soldiers in front of Jitters lead by a face that Caitlin knew all too well.

 **"We've got trouble"** She got up from the table ** _"Barry, get over here. Our old Pal general Eiling just showed up and I think we might need backup"_** She tried to contact Barry, which responded immediately

 ** _"I was actually wanting to join you at Jitters so I was very close. I'll go back and get both our suits"_** he said and sped back to the labs. Caitlin pulled Ronnie toward the back door **"Go outside, I'll be right behind you"** As Ronnie went outside the soldiers surrounded him and before they could even move they were all down on the ground. Barry had managed to get Caitlin her suit and took out all the soldiers.

 **"General, to what do we owe this pleasure"** Barry talked at Eiling with his metal voice **"Don't tell us that you came to … collect another asset for the military"**

 **"Because I thought we made ourselves clear the last time when you tried to do something similar what would happen to you if you came to this city again. Flash, which island should we leave him on, I hear there are a few that are quite full of deadly insects and snakes"** Frost ended with streams of cold air coming off her hands. They would hit the ground and spread like a creeping fog all around the soldiers, but going straight toward Eiling.

 **"I don't know, Frost. I'm sure we can think of something that can be equally painful, but it will take a long time for him to actually die. Maybe that one where there is nothing except desert and a few trees? I hear hunger is a slow and insidious killer"** Flash replied. Eiling stood there frozen. He completely forgot that coming to Central City meant putting himself in grave danger, up to a point that the two speedsters were already discussing on which island to make him disappear on.

 **"I'm leaving as soon as the soldiers wake up"** he managed to blurt out

 **"Good. Don't come here again. This is your last warning, general. You really don't want the third time to be a charm"** Frost told him while making a circle of ice daggers around him that planted themselves into the ground. Eiling saw them speeding away with Ronnie, as the two disappeared speeding toward STAR.

 **"You came right on time, Barry"** Ronnie said toward the speedster as they ran

 **"I heard Cait calling for me and I came. I was actually in the neighborhood, since I wanted to meet you properly so I was walking here"** The speedster responded. First of all Ronnie noticed how he called her and the way she smiled at the way that name rolled off his tongue. The second thing was more surprising.

 **"What do you mean … Caitlin called you? I didn't see any sort of … phone call or message. You came here out of nowhere"** Ronnie was looking at his sister.

 **"One of the … ahem … side effects of the lightning was the fact that we can hear each other's thoughts. You didn't see me using my phone, because … well I called him … with my mind"** She smiled toward her brother. His face fell instantly.

 **"Yes, and like I said before, I was around. I went back to the Labs, took the suits and high tailed it back here as fast as I could"** Barry smiled at him. He wanted to say something else but Ronnie cut him off

 **"Don't worry, I won't say anything about you two. Cait already made that clear. Still glad the ice princess found someone for herself"** The man smirked

 **"Not as glad as the man who found the ice princess"** the speedster chuckled making Caitlin, even in her Frost form blush hard. Ronnie noticed that instantly and started to chuckle himself. The three finally made it back to the labs.

 **"Had no idea you two can be so menacing. Especially a shy solitary girl that was nothing more than the epitome of being non-confrontational all her life"** Ronnie spoke after they landed back in the cortex at STAR Labs. He was shocked at how the two talked to Eiling as if they were genuinely thinking about killing him.

 **"Yeah, we have dealt with General Wade Eiling while helping another colleague of ours. You will probably meet her if you stick around more"** Barry continued

 **"So this is your life now, huh?"** Ronnie managed to talk **"Running around with him through the city "**

 **"Saving people, hunting things, the family business"** she added and started to laugh followed by Barry. Ronnie wasn't a stranger himself to those sort of references so he chuckled.

 **"You just had to remind me I watch too much Netflix, didn't you, Cait?"** Barry almost face palmed while still laughing.

 **"Well, that's what you said back there when we met the Arrow didn't you? Think I'd forget you making that sort of reference this soon? You wish, Barry Allen"** she said between the laughs

Ronnie was looking at both of them. Barry called her Cait, this was the second time that he noticed her nickname being used. Something she never let anyone do. She usually got mad at him when he called her that. He was supposed to have been dead and while he knew the pain would be great for her, it was pretty obvious that she had managed to deal with it and still has happiness in her life, thanks to the guy that was next to her with a goofy grin and which seemingly watched too much TV.

 **"I guess this is indeed our life, Ronnie. Barry and I have done this for a little bit and Cisco has been helping. He was the person that designed the earrings which permit me to camouflage my change"** Caitlin continued, but Ronnie was starting to feel Ill.

 **"Something is wrong either with me or Professor Stein. It feels like I'm burning from the inside"** Ronnie stated with his eyes wide and holding his stomach like he had problems from the food he just ate. Barry put him on a medical table. They started to assess his situation. Wells and Cisco were already used to the dance of lightning the two produced when they were concentrating on solving something, so they didn't give it much thought concentrating on their own tasks, but it was all new for Ronnie. He looked as Barry took some blood, while flashing away, Caitlin came back and put some wires on him hooking him up to the monitors and zipped away herself.

Barry was holding his hand out with a vial of his blood and Ronnie thought for a second he had let it go to fall to the ground while moving to check if there were any changes in his condition, but almost instantly the vial was taken by Caitlin, which was going to another station to check for abnormalities in his cells. He was sincerely awed by the way the two scientists worked together. His jaw almost fell, but he saw Cisco watching sheepishly from the consoles and he understood this was new only to him, the others had clearly seen this before.

 **"We call it the Lightning Dance"** Cisco smirked while adjusting some of the monitors

 **"No we don't call it that, Cisco"** both the flashes stopped and spoke before going back to their respective tests.

 **"Well, they don't call it that, but we do"** he smiled again looking at the way Ronnie's jaw fell.

 **"I'm guessing this is a normal occurrence around here? Since you don't seem to be that surprised"** he managed to speak

 **"I think I had the same face as you did the first time I've actually seen it. When those two get going and they have something on their mind … this is what results. The speed at which they work sometimes is so high, that the machines can't keep up with them. At that time they stop and wait then resume. Most of the time however, this is a normal occurrence"** Cisco was definitely proud of his friends. Ronnie could see that on his face. He smiled as they came to a halt.

 **"Your cellular structure is becoming unstable again, I think the Firestorm Matrix wants to be whole again, you two being kept apart might cause the instability that is making you both ill"** Wells glanced over the results

 **"We need to find Professor Stein"** Caitlin said

 **"Martin is right there"** Ronnie pointed out a figure that was just entering the Cortex.

 **"Seems that I and Ronald aren't as separate as we might have thought. The distance after the separation might have produced a new side effect of the split"** the professor managed to speak. It was clear that he wasn't feeling well.

 **"You have the same brainwave patterns"** Caitlin pointed out after they had both the subjects tied into the monitors

 **"That would be impossible for two people to have the same synchronized brainwave pattern. Except we have seen it before"** Barry spoke

 **"You have? Where?"** Stein asked

 **"Cait and I have the same patterns as well. Probably as a direct result of the lightning strike"** Barry explained.

 **"You might need to merge again"** Wells suddenly interjected. **"Your bodies cannot stand being separated for too long both your core temperatures are going up slowly"**

 **"But we don't know if they will be able to separate after that"** Caitlin sounded scared about that. Barry felt her fear, she didn't want to lose Ronnie again.

 **"I think they will. I have a theory. The first time they merged was not consciously, their bodies rejected the merge and they almost blew up. I think with acceptance and understanding of these powers will come the ability to merge and separate at will. As long as the two are in sync about what they want"** Wells explained. **"Besides, we don't have any other choice, if they continue to heat up, they will go nuclear and this time there won't be just one blast"**

 **"I'm willing to try if you are, Ronald"** Stein agreed

 **"I am. I would rather not nuke the city and everyone in it"** He smiled back while Cisco put the quantum splicer back on his chest. The two shook hands as the other backed away and in a blinding flash of light , the burning man was back, only this time it was different.

 **"Is Ronnie in there somewhere?"** Caitlin asked fearfully, with Barry taking her hand in his for comfort.

 **"It's me, Caitlin. But I don't know where Professor Stein is"** he replied

 **"I'm here, Ronald"** a voice echoed in his head **"Wells was right about acceptance, now we can coexist in the same body"**

 **"He's here" Ronnie told the crew "I can hear him in my head, but it's clear, I can control my body and he is like my copilot. It feels weird but it's definitely both of us"**

 **"Can you separate?"** Caitlin asked

 **"I don't know. But we can try"** Everyone backed away again as Ronnie stood in the middle of the cortex, bright light coming off of him like fire. As the fire intensified a flash prompted everyone to close their eyes for a second and when they opened them up, Ronnie and Professor Stein were back.

 **"I think we're getting the hang of this, Ronald"** Stein smiled at his new found partner.

 **"Yep. I think we are. Thank you for the idea, Dr. Wells"**

 **"Ronald, I have talked to a colleague of mine, someone who was on the project and had significant input in it. She might be able to teach us on how to get more of a handle on our powers. If you`re willing to come with me"** the professor spoke

 **"Yes, I want to learn more about the matrix and its powers, to be able to help these two speedsters if needed"** Ronnie answered the question. He would have wanted more time to spend with Caitlin, but from what he had seen, she was not lonely or sad. She had someone that she obviously cared about deeply and that person cared about her as well.

 **"So, you`re leaving already?"** Caitlin asked with disappointment in her voice

 **"It's not like I'm dead anymore, sis. You can pick up the phone and call me from time to time without needing a line to the afterlife. Or … you know, you can race over and see me in person"** He smiled and she realized he was right. He was not dead; he was alive thanks to the efforts of the team. She could talk to him or go see him whenever she wanted. It would only take a few minutes for her to go visit with her speed.

 **"I guess that's settled then. We will be back"** Stein told them **"Let's go so I can say goodbye to Clarissa and we can be on our way"** They all followed them to the outside of the labs where the two merged again forming Firestorm and flew up into the sky. Barry could feel Caitlin's sadness, but also her joy at finding her brother alive.

 **"Cait, you up for some coffee and ice cream?"** Barry asked her and she smiled. He had a way of making her happy even with small gestures.

 **"Yea, Jitters then?"** she replied

 **"I'm coming too"** Cisco interjected. **"I'm dying for a sandwich"**

The two knew that they couldn't say no. Until they figured out what they were, they didn't say anything to anyone about them being together, but Cisco had a dark gleam in his eyes, something which made Caitlin and Barry wonder about his true motives of wanting to come along.

 **"You three go ahead, I still have some things I need to do"** Wells answered as he rolled back inside. The two picked up Cisco and flashed to the usual Jitters back alley where nobody could see them stop.

 **"We need to talk"** Cisco spoke while they sat down at their usual table in the back as far away from the counters so that nobody could hear them.

 **"We figured something was up. You had a weird look in your eyes"** Caitlin answered him

 **"I have been helping Joe, on the side, to find out stuff about your mother's murder, Barry. We went back to the house and we managed to get some still images from a mirror that was still there. Those images lead us to the fact that there wasn't just one speedster there that night. There were two"** Cisco started prompting amazed looks from Barry and Caitlin **"But wait, there's more. We found some blood underneath some of the new wallpaper. I had it tested and the tests just came back. I already talked to Joe about it while you were taking care of Ronnie and Stein. One of the blood samples was unknown, but the other came up as Barry's blood"**

 **"That's impossible, I wasn't even downstairs when she was murdered"** Barry muttered.

 **"I had the blood analyzed further without telling you. We thought if it's a bust it's a bust if not we can tell you when we found something. We did find something, the blood that came out as being yours, it had a buildup of a certain protein. That protein can only have near around that build up from an adult of at least 25 years of age. Not from an 11 year old"** Cisco continued

 **"So ... you`re telling us that there were two speedsters in the room… one was the man in the yellow suit and the other was"** Caitlin tried to reason

 **"The Flash"** Barry finished her sentence **"But that means, that I try to save her and I fail? That would mean that the speed we have been given will at one point allow us to break the time barrier. There would be no explanation as to why my blood would be there in the past"** his face became dark

 **"I have talked to Professor Stein about the whole time travel thing. In theory, if you go fast enough you can release a wave of energy which can punch a hole through the space – time continuum. That in turn can take you to whatever time you want. Kind of like an on ramp to a highway, the highway of time. The explanation was pretty accurate considering he had been thinking about the possibility of time travel in his off time"** Cisco finished his explanation. Barry was digesting the words that Cisco told him **" _I think we should tell him about the flashes"_** he thought knowing Caitlin would hear him

 ** _"You think that's wise? I mean we don't know how he will react, he respects Dr. Wells and he might resist the idea that he can actually be a killer"_** she answered promptly

 ** _"If time travel is indeed a thing, then these flashes might not be a product of the lightning at all. I might be actually seeing into the future, or at least into a parallel world of sorts"_** he replied

 ** _"He is the only person I fully trust now, beside you and Joe. I know you do as well. I used to trust Wells, but those images kind of … lead me to have doubts more than anything else"_** Caitlin replied to him.

 **"Hey, guys? Earth to Barry and Caitlin"** Cisco spoke. They both looked at each other and nodded. Cisco noticed that it looked like they were having a discussion without him.

 **"Cisco, I have been having flashes. Caitlin has seen them as well. Some things that I don't understand where they come from, but some are quite disturbing"** Barry started

 **"Some of them aren't true, but some … We saw doctor Wells stood up. He was white room and had some sort of tech that we didn't see anywhere before and smirk on his face"** Caitlin continued. Cisco sat and listened to what his friends were telling him.

 **"This is not enough to say he's guilty, but it's enough to make us at least have some doubts. In the end, we don't even know if he's really paralyzed. Caitlin and I were looking for some x rays or any other sort of material evidence that would prove us wrong, but we found nothing to prove that. Therefore, at this time the only thing we have to corroborate that he is indeed disabled is his word. At one point that would be all we would ever need, but not anymore. We need hard evidence"** Barry finished

 **"We're trying to prove this is false, but we have no evidence to support our claims"** Caitlin interjected. Cisco had seen the way Barry analyzed clues and his eye for details, knowing Caitlin had his investigative skills was a double whammy for the engineer whose first reflex was to defend the crippled doctor. Then he remembered what Joe had told him and stopped himself from speaking. The two were obviously trying to prove that he was a good person and not peg him as the villain.

 **"Is there anything I can do to help you guys?"** Cisco asked

 **"Since we cannot prove that what Barry saw was false, it is time that we think it might be true. We should start looking for proof in that avenue of thought. Even if it is … almost unthinkable"** Caitlin told him

 **"Remember there were tachyons at Mercury?"** Cisco nodded. **"Can you make something that will detect those particles and see if there are any of them anywhere in the lab?"** Barry asked

 **"Dr. Wells has been spending a lot of time on the gantry level of the accelerator and I have seen him multiple times coming up from the elevator from that particular level. When we have that tachyon detector maybe we should start there"** Caitlin added to the conversation smiling at the proud look Barry was giving her. **"What?"**

 **"Well look at you, Dr. Caitlin Snow, CSI"** he quipped. **"Had no idea you would actually pick up on such small things"** he scratched his head **"Things that I actually did not pick up on myself"** The trio started to laugh.

 **"While I don't think he is the bad guy in here, I'm going to help you, of course. I trust Dr. Wells, but I do trust you two above him. I'll need a few days to come up with something though. Hunting superluminal particles isn't something easy like building a shelf from IKEA"** the engineer smiled

 **"Thank you"** both of them replied

 **"No sweat. Barry, remember what I told you when Caitlin was in a coma. Anything you need built, I'm your man, no questions asked. Well I might ask questions if you want me to build a bomb or something that could destroy the city, but aside that, no questions asked. I'll see you both around. I need to go back home and get some rest. I'll need it"** Cisco took his leave and they were just the two of them at the table.

 **"Well that went … better than expected"** Barry managed to speak after a moment of silence having a true sincere admiration for Cisco **"He is the best friend I never had, until now"**

 **"He is right, while we both want Dr. Wells to not be the bad guy, we trust Cisco implicitly. It's for the better that we brought him up to speed"** They smiled at each other while leaving Jitters hand in hand to go to their respective homes. Barry had made a habit of walking her home, even when he would be not be staying over and she made a habit to leave her car at home and speed at work in the morning, just so she could walk with him home in the evening. Barry thought at first that was strange, but he picked on it rather quickly, not saying anything but being extremely happy just to take a walk with her.

Some days they would even go shopping together, it didn't matter if he would spend the night at her place or not. It could have been just for the familiarity of it, or she would know that he would be over the next day and surprised him with something that was expertly done, or since he had been staying there, she had been trying new recipes and experimenting with old ones. She laughed and told Barry at one point that she likes to do in the kitchen the same thing she does at the labs day in day out. The speedster was grateful, he always tried to help her and the fact that they continued to do that, day in day out lead to them continuing to get closer and closer to each other.


	17. Tricks

Barry and Caitlin were at Jitters getting coffee like every other morning when they didn't feel like brewing their own at home. They tried the trap for the Reverse Flash, only for it to fail and Harrison Wells to be injured in the fight. Cisco still had doubts about why the trap failed, it was his work and he knew all the ins and outs. It should not have let the speedster out, but … it did. The problem with that being that Cisco somehow started to lose his drive into developing things. That didn't take long, the two speedsters managing to put him on track and make him realize that everyone makes mistakes. Including him.

Their latest experience that had them reliving one complete day after going back through time was something that alerted them to the dangers of time travel. In the first timeline, a bomb exploded and the blast along with the particles it created managed to push them through the time barrier. When they returned, they stopped the bomber, but shit still hit the fan. Cisco's brother Dante had been kidnapped, forcing the engineer to create a new gun for Lisa Snart, captain Cold's sister, the three rogues were out in the wild again. With the added problem, that Cold knew his identity now. He had been acting strange toward Eddie and Iris after the return, mostly because Iris was being her old annoying self about him spending too much time with his partner, like it was something she could regulate, but Caitlin saved his ass by blaming it on a yet unknown and very elusive medical condition only known as **"Lightning psychosis"**. Her intervention managed to fix the problem and he had taken her out to dinner as thanks. Just a simple dinner but which made them happy that they were spending time together in private as well as at work.

This morning however he had come into some new information while watching TV the other night. He remembered Iris telling him that she had been partnered with some famous reporter who had something against Dr. Wells. She had let slip that he had some sort of grand Expose about him being a mad scientist and the fact that the particle accelerator had exploded was not an accident but it was in fact a planned event. That same reporter had disappeared under suspicious circumstances, and his work had vanished without a trace. The only witness who had been present at the paper, said that there was a flash of red lightning that night in the building. The two were sitting there quietly drinking their coffees and looking at one another, in reality, they were being anything but quiet. They had gotten used to the link that the lightning had given to them, conversing more mentally than talking when they were in public and they had superhero business to talk about.

 ** _"This seems to be way more than a coincidence, Cait"_** Barry said taking a sip of his coffee

 ** _"I agree. After what you found out from Iris, the fact that the lead reporter on the Wells story has disappeared seems more than that. Do you think Wells shut him up because he was actually on to something?"_** she asked

 ** _"I don't know, but I think it might be beneficial to start talking to Joe right about now. He might have some idea about this. Especially since Cisco has been helping him with this investigation"_** she nodded as they both got out of Jitters and head toward CCPD. They went straight to his lab and they told Joe to come when he has some time. The board that had the usual Central City map had under it the clues that had been found in his mother's case.

 **"What's up, Bar?"** Joe entered the room and closed the door at his foster's son sign.

 **"I'm thinking you might be right. Harrison Wells is not the guy we thought he is"** Barry started to speak. While they had been waiting for him the two had been going through his autobiography and several other sources to try to get as much information about the good doctor as possible

 **"The reporter that was looking into his activities has vanished and wouldn't you know it, Iris is trying to track him down"** Joe said almost with a disdain in his voice. Sometimes he was annoyed at how resilient and stubborn his daughter was.

 **"We know, but all we could find from the internet and various books was the fact that he is "enigmatic" which basically doesn't help us at all"** Barry continued quickly followed by Caitlin

 **"We have tried to find evidence about his spinal injury too, but there are no documents on record at any hospital that would confirm his story".** Caitlin spoke. They started to hear distant explosions and when they looked outside they could see smoke coming from somewhere around the park. They changed and flashed to the scene of the crime, leaving Joe to look over what they had gathered.

There were presents that fell from the sky in small parachutes, when they touched anything they would explode. Flash and Frost managed to get everyone out of the perimeter where the gifts were falling and they were stuck dodging the explosions.

 **"Flash, can you get me some cover, I'm going to detonate them all at once"** Frost told her partner

 **"Yes, I'll tornado them to keep the packages off of you, make sure you don't explode while you do that"** The Flash ran around Frost keeping her out of harm's way by creating a small tornado that the gifts could not penetrate, while the air around them began to form into icicles. Lots and lots of icicles that were trained on the falling gifts. **" _Oh, freezing rain. Now why didn't I think of that"_** the Flash thought to himself.

 ** _"Because you don't have ice powers?"_** the answer came and he could see Frost grinning. The ice masses started to fly prompting explosion after explosion until the sky was clear. The two ran on top of the buildings that could have been the vantage points for the gifts to be dropped, but they found no one so they went back to STAR Labs were Joe, Cisco and Wells were watching a recording of someone named The Trickster.

 **"Talking in the third person, nothing good can come out of that"** Cisco said grumpily

 **"You`re just mad he named himself for a change. Not a pretty bad name at that, except the costume is pretty awful"** Caitlin retorted after changing out of her suit and activated her earrings.

 **"Actually, he didn't. 20 Years ago there were a chain of terrorist attacks on the city. One man, killed at least 10 civilians and two cops. That guy called himself the Trickster. From what I can see here, his name was James Jesse"** Cisco was typing away at the console

 **"James Jesse?"** Caitlin said with a comical look on her face.

 **"Kind of like Jesse James, but more twisted"** Joe added

 **"So where is this Mister Jesse now?"** Wells asked

 **"He is serving multiple life sentences locked up in Iron Heights"** the reply came **"he was just about the most dangerous thing Central City had ever seen"**

 **"Until the particle accelerator exploded"** said Barry with a grim tone. Wells noticing the connotation to that remark almost immediately.

 **"I'm going to go have a little chat with James Jesse"** Joe spoke **"You see if you can find something else about this guy and what are his intentions"**

 ** _"What are you thinking"_** the question came **" _I have seen that look on your face before"_** Caitlin asked

 ** _"I realized that before the particle accelerator explosion, if James Jesse was the biggest threat, then Central City would have nothing to worry about. However, after that with the hundreds of metahumans around, it's like the explosion created more problems for the city and too few solutions in me and you. Two people against everyone"_** he smiled bitterly. They were both working at the consoles hiding their conversation. They have gotten early on that standing there in silence would be something that most people notice.

 ** _"Me and you against them? I'll take those odds any day. They don't stand a snowball's chance in hell"_** she grinned back at him instantly making him feel more at ease.

After a few hours, Barry received a call from Joe, prompting the fact that he had pinpointed the old hideout of the madman. They were on the scene after about a minute as they got in they found the place mostly empty. Except for a steel container that was in the back and had been unopened. Barry managed to vibrate the doors to unlock but when they half opened the door they could hear a ticking sound. Instantly Barry and Caitlin sped away taking Joe, she did manage to put an ice wall in front of the container and even so, the blowback pushed them to the ground.

 **"Damn it. This was a trap. Thank god the bomb wasn't bigger than it already was, or we would have been incinerated"** Joe sighed picking himself off the floor **"Thanks for the save you two, I need to go back and talk a bit more with Jesse James. It looks like there were a lot of things here that the new one might have stolen, things that might be of a real danger to our city"**

An hour later, while they were at STAR they received their answer. The new trickster had a bomb in the city. He did not hint where or how but he did say that it would go off in an hour. Harrison Wells thought that it might be a distraction, but neither Barry nor Caitlin listened to him, which proved to be a mistake. The two ran around the city to look for the bomb, but when they found it, it was just an empty crate.

 **"Barry, Dr. Wells was right"** a voice sounded from their comms **"It's just a distraction, there was an explosion at Iron Heights while you were looking for the bomb. James Jesse has escaped and … there's more bad news"** Cisco said with a shaky tone.

 **"What bad news Cisco?"** Caitlin asked him bluntly

 **"The tricksters took two persons hostage as I can see from the security footage. Joe and Henry"** the engineer continued.

 **"Why would he take my dad hostage?"** Barry asked with disbelief in his voice

 **"We don't know"** Wells interjected from the other com line **"But apparently, James Jesse has tricked us all. Come back to STAR. We'll figure something out"** The two speedsters flashed back to STAR but when Caitlin stopped in the cortex she realized that Barry wasn't with her.

The speedster was sulking in the pipeline, everyone was looking for him, but Caitlin had a pretty good idea where he had gone. It was the only place that Barry would go when he wanted to be alone. She decided to just go talk to him, he needed some support and she wasn't much help right now while Cisco and Wells were trying to find the tricksters. As she went down the halls toward the pipeline, her heels made the usual noise that Barry was familiar with.

 **"Hey"** he smiled weakly **"Sorry I left unannounced. I wasn't in the mood to talk. Just wanted to be alone. You don't count, you`re always welcome, even if I don't want to see anyone. Do you think my father and foster father are still alive?"**

 **"Of course they are. James Jesse might be crazy, but he's not stupid. Corpses don't make good hostages"** She sat down near him, letting his head fall into her lap **" He took Joe and Henry as leverage and everyone up there is trying to find them"**

 ** _"Tell me Cait, how am I supposed to leave my dad's fate or Joe's fate for that matter, in the hands of a man that might have had something with my mother's murder?"_** he asked her without actually speaking, he did not want those words to be heard **" _I can't do this anymore, Cait. It's like whatever I do something always comes back to bite me in the ass. I'm so tired of all this"_**

 ** _"Yes, you can. I will be here with you. You aren't alone, Barry. Together we can do this"_** She answered holding his hand

 ** _"It just doesn't make any sense. If Wells is the man that murdered my mother then why does he want to help us?"_** his eyes were watering as she asked that **" _Why did he help us catch so many metahumans? Why did he help us save Ronnie? Why was I so blind? Why did I trust him without a second thought?"_**

 ** _"Barry, we were all blind. You saw how conflicted I was when you showed me those images. You saw how Cisco acted when we told him our suspicions. He was … the man that saved us, at the beginning, the one that gave you a home and a place to work while trying to get me out of my coma, he helped us every step of the way. Barry, he is Harrison Wells, no matter what else he is"_** Caitlin held him as they were talking

 ** _"You mean I had this coming?"_** he asked almost like he blamed himself

 ** _"No. You love science and being here with Dr. Wells it's like you made best friends with Einstein or something. One of the reasons that made me like you so much, why we became so close so fast, is that you can see the best in people. You saw me as Caitlin Snow, not the frigid woman with 2500+ shields around her, complimented with mines, salt lines and demon traps that avoids everyone and just goes about her own business. You saw the best in Dr. Wells as well. As fast as you are, that is your real power. Don't let Wells, or anyone else for that matter, take that from you. I don't know why he is helping us, but now, when we need to find Joe and your dad, all that matters is that he is"_** Caitlin told him while instinctively she ran her hand through his hair almost trying to calm him down.

 ** _"I can't lose my dad, Cait. I can't lose Joe either"_** Barry stood up looking at Caitlin with watery eyes almost like all his life had been sucked out of him.

 ** _"Don't worry, we will find them and get them out. Remember, me and you against the rest"_** She saw a glimmer of hope in his eyes and a faint smile

 ** _"I wouldn't have it any other way. Thank you"_** he replied as she took him into a hug. Barry's phone rang. It was Iris's caller Id, but instead of her, they heard James Jesse's voice. They both sped up back to the cortex.

 **"Cisco, that's him. Can you ping Iris's cell?"** Barry asked the engineer.

 **"Wait for it, yes she's at the mayor's reelection party. Let me pull up the CCTV for the area. Oh great, he locked them in the vault with bombs all around them"** Cisco said with a bit of fear in his eyes.

 **"But … we can't get into a closed vault. The moment we open the door the bombs will explode"** Caitlin voice was close to a whisper that everyone heard.

 **"There is a way. You two go over there, I'll explain what to do on the way"** Wells told them as they both sped out **"What I want you to do is simple. You will phase through the wall and disarm the bombs"**

 **"Wait ... what?"** the two manage to say at the same time

 **"Listen to me, both of you. You will have to vibrate at the same frequency air does. Breathe, feel the wind on your face. Feel the lightning, feel its power, its electricity pumping through your veins, crackling through you, travelling to every nerve in your body like a shock. You are no longer you now, you are part of something greater, a force. A speed force. It's all yours, embrace it, control it and go do it!"** Wells told them

Flash and Frost followed his instructions and crashed right through the back wall of the vault. In a few seconds, every bomb was rendered inert and they phased through the wall and tied up both tricksters.

 **"Whoa, that felt weird"** Caitlin commented in her earpiece.

 **"Tell me where Henry Allen and Joe West are"** Said the Flash with a really dark glare.

They found the two at the new hideout of the Tricksters both tied to chairs with knives suspended above them, the time they had was short, but it was enough for the two speedsters which managed to get the two people out in time before they were hit by the knives.

 **"Oh my god"** Henry exclaimed as Barry took down his mask **"You always looked good in red"** he sighed **"But what about your friend here?"** he motioned toward Frost. She took off her mask and activated the earrings while extending a hand.

 **"Hello, Dr. Allen"** Henry looked amazed as the silver white haired superhero who saved Joe instantly turned into a face he recognized as she took her own mask down and smiled.

 **"Well, everything makes a whole lot more sense now"** he shook her hand sternly **"Hello… what do I call you?"**

 **"I'm Frost. But you already know what to call me"** she smiled as Henry hugged his son. Then he remembered what had happened back when he was injured.

 **"It was you, you caught Julius back then when I got stabbed"** Henry looked at her incredulously **"Trapped in the bathroom, huh?"**

 **"Well, he didn't really escape per se… I broke him out to ask him a few questions and in the commotion I forgot him outside the prison when I came back"** She grinned to Henry which started to laugh

 **"I'm sure you forgot him, Frost. Thank you"** He smiled while he chuckled. They took them and just sped back to STAR Labs.

 **"Wow, half of this stuff didn't even exist while I was practicing"** Henry looked at the multitude of machines in the cortex.

 **"I'll be happy to give you a crash course on all of it when you get out"** Cisco quipped shaking his hand **"Um, I'm going to shut up now"** the engineer admonished himself when he realized how he was talking to someone significantly older than him.

 **"That's ok. To be honest considering how complicated this all looks, I might actually need one"** Henry smiled and patted Cisco on the back

 **"Dr. Allen. I feel the need to give you a hug"** Caitlin smiled at him having changed from her Frost suit

 **"Absolutely, I will always accept a hug"** As the two hugged Henry whispered in Caitlin's ear **"Thank you for taking care of Barry"**

 **"He took care of me first and that's what partners do. They take care of each other"** she replied with the same low voice. You could see the wide smile on Henry's face as they broke the hug.

 **"You have to tell me. What does it feel like when you run down the street like a bat out of hell"** Henry asked his son while he, Caitlin and Barry were standing in front of the glass cases containing their costumes.

 **"There's no feeling like it"** both answered in a sentence.

 **"Actually, you are all heroes in my book. Specially you Dr. Wells. Thank you for taking care of my boy back when he was hit my lightning"** Henry went to the crippled scientist and gave him a stern shaking of his hand.

 **"I need to take you back now, Henry, meet me later for Pizza at Jitters if you`re in the mood the rest of you"** Joe said from behind the consoles

 **"Yeah, I wouldn't want them to think I broke out. I want to get out of prison sooner, rather than later"** Henry smiled to the group **"Thank you again "**

 ** _"Come with me"_** Caitlin told Barry so that only he could hear and went out the cortex toward the elevator Joe and Henry just got on. Barry followed her a she turned around a bit away from the Cortex and hugged him kissing his lips slowly yet passionately. Barry felt totally at peace in her arms, the kiss deepening, but not dragging on as the two soon separated.

 ** _"What was that for?"_** Barry asked

 ** _"Nothing. I just thought after all that happened you could use a hug and a kiss"_** she smiled brightly. One of the smiles that would always light up his world.

 ** _"Thank you. You were right"_** he smiled back, from the outside the two looking like two dorks smiling at each other **" _You heard Joe. We need to meet, but I don't think it's for pizza. Let's get out of here, we should take Cisco with us too"_** she nodded and they went back to the control room.

 **"So? Who wants to go for pizza?"** Barry asked prompting a weird look from Cisco

 **"You know I'm in"** the engineer said almost immediately

 **"You go ahead. You`ve earned it after today's events. I have something I'm working on and will stay at the lab for a few hours more"** Wells excused himself politely. The trio walked out of STAR.

 **"We aren't really going for pizza, are we?"** Cisco asked, as the three just got out the front door and were walking through the parking lot **"I thought it a bit weird seeing the looks you both had"**

 **"No, we need to go to the CCPD. We have to talk to Eddie and Joe"** Barry replied

 **"Yea, it would have been pizza if Dr. Wells decided to join us. Which would have put a bit of a dent in our plans for tonight. But all's well that ends well"** Caitlin told the engineer

 **"What do we have to talk to Joe and Eddie about?"** he still asked.

 **"Iris. She has been digging into her partner's disappearance. The one that doesn't like Harrison Wells"** Barry replied

 **"Oh. So you want to ask Eddie to convince her to stop looking?"** Cisco realized what they were trying to do

 **"Either that, or tell her some lie that he's gone abroad or something. She needs to stop searching, or risk getting herself killed like Mason was"** Caitlin replied coldly. The three started to move fast toward the crime lab, they made a tactical error; the street was full of people so they couldn't flash out. They finally managed to go to an alley and they went straight for the lab. Joe left a message with the desk sergeant that he wanted Eddie to meet them there as well. The person relayed the message and two hours later he showed up.

 **"Hey, Joe. Desk sergeant said you were looking for me"** Eddie spoke as he entered the lab. Seeing Cisco there as well. **"Hey, Cisco. So, what is this about?"**

 **"Hey, Eddie. How about you take a seat. It's about Iris. She's looking into Mason Bridges' disappearance. We can't let that happen"** A strong gust of wind made Eddie jump out of his chair turning around and seeing Flash and Frost sitting in the doorway with the door to the lab now closed.

 **"Hello, Eddie"** the Flash said, removing his mask and revealing Barry Allen

 **"Hello, Detective"** Frost greeted herself removing her mask and pressed a button on her arm that revealed the form of Caitlin Snow. Eddie got off his chair with his jaw still firmly planted on the ground.

 **"We need your help, or better said, your cooperation"** Joe told him as Eddie still looked at the two that had appeared in the doorway. Two people he knew very well and yet apparently knew nothing about.

 **"You two. You`re Flash and Frost?"** he barely managed to articulate but made sure to keep his voice low

 **"Yes and we need your help"** Barry spoke.

 **"We need to keep Iris on a fake trail. If she digs up more on Mason Bridges, she will inadvertently reach Harrison Wells. And … I don't think that will be safe for her, not to mention that she might spook him enough that he disappears completely"** Joe replied

 **"But what does Harrison Wells have to do with Iris?"** Eddie asked

 **"We know Mason Bridges had a problem with Harrison Wells, up to a point where he was writing an expose on the doctor which supposedly was to prove that the particle accelerator explosion was something that was planned and not an accident. He died, as you probably know, and Iris is looking into his disappearance. We do not want her to reach him. Today, when he was talking about phasing … the way that he talked about the wind, and the lightning, and the feeling of the air around us, it was like …"** Caitlin spoke

 **"He was talking from experience"** Barry completed her sentence **"I don't know how, but Harrison Wells is the Reverse Flash, the man who killed my mother and the one I have been itching to catch all this time"**

 **"Hey, guys … I think now would be a good time to tell you something"** Cisco managed to speak looking like he had seen a ghost. **"Ever since you guys said you time jumped, I've been having these dreams … "**

 **"What kind of dreams, Cisco?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"I've been having them, mostly at night, but sometimes during the day. They come and go like your flashes. In them … Dr. Wells is the Reverse Flash. He kills me with a vibrating hand through the chest"** Cisco barely managed to speak before sitting on a chair, visibly shook by what he experienced. Eddie was still there looking at them talking like they have been doing this for a long while. Barry remembered one if his flashes from before and marked it down as accurate

 **"So wait, you`re all ... a part of this?"** he asked managing to speak

 **"Yes. Everyone you see here, Including Dr. Wells. Or at least ... until we suspected him to be the Reverse Flash"** Barry explained.

 **"Well, I'm in. I always thought you guys were doing good work and it's about keeping Iris safe. If there's anything I can do, then yes. I'll help"** Eddie replied rather excited.

 **"Go home and talk to Iris. Tell her something about Mason Bridges. I don't know ... like he went to Brazil for a hiking trip after a girlfriend for a year. She needs to stop looking into his disappearance so she doesn't become a target for Wells"** Joe told him

 **"All right. If you guys need anything else you know where to find me"** Eddie waved and left.

 **"Hope he can keep the secret identity thing to himself"** Cisco thought out aloud

 **"Don't worry. I got to know Eddie quite well since he's been dating Iris. He's a good guy, he won't say anything to anyone"** Barry reassured the team **"Cisco what about your dreams? Think we can access them somehow to make them clearer?"**

 **"We can try to use lucid dreaming therapy"** Caitlin joined in **"Make Cisco dream and be in complete control, while one of us steers him from the outside through the dream, to tell us what's happening"**

 **"That sounds like something doable. I would need to build something to induce the lucid dreaming state, however"** Cisco's mind was already working on the device that he would need to build while he walked toward the door. **"I'll see you all tomorrow. Good night"**

 **"Then I guess we're done for tonight. Barry, coming?"** Joe asked

 ** _"You can go home or you can come over to my place if you want. I don't think you want to be home just in case Iris decides that she wants to drop by and spend the night after Eddie has to lie to her. If she suspects anything it could turn into something ugly"_** Caitlin thought

 ** _"You`re right. Let's go. Besides, let's be honest here, I always enjoy sleeping with you that I enjoy sleeping alone, in a large bed at Joe's"_** Barry replied to her mentally while responding to Joe. **"No Joe, that's all right. I won't be coming home tonight"** Joe raised an eyebrow.

 **"Did you rent another place to sleep? Because you`ve been missing from home on quite a few occasions and they have only gotten more and more frequent in the last few weeks"** the detective had an inquisitive look on his face

 **"No Joe. I've been sleeping at my girlfriend's place"** Barry added quite nonchalantly

 **"Well that's new. Since when do you have a girlfriend?"** Caitlin asked quite surprised.

 **"Yeah, if you don't mind, I'd rather not sit and chat about my personal life right now. Ok ? Yeah? Thanks. Good night"** Barry put his mask on and sped out not wanting to answer the array of questions he knew Joe would assault him with.

 **"That was weird"** Joe started to rub his head **"Do you know anything about that?"**

 **"No clue, I thought he was at home. Anyway, I'm about to leave. Do you want a ride?"** She asked politely, but lying through her teeth.

 **"No, that's fine, my car is downstairs. Good night, Caitlin"** the detective smiled at her.

 **"Good night, Joe"** she waved and sped out the door, not taking her a couple of seconds to reach her own apartment.

She was not surprised to find him in her house. He already knew where the spare key was. He was cooking some spaghetti with tomato sauce and basil, which smelled absolutely delicious. She sped into the house locked the door and went straight to the bedroom and changed into something more comfortable putting her Frost suit in the same bag that held his Flash suit.

 **"Sleeping at your girlfriend's place huh?"** she came out of the bedroom and gave him a wide grin, which turned into a knowing smile.

 **"You`re the one to talk. Asking me if I have a girlfriend? Nice acting over there, Dr. Snow. Not Broadway class yet, but still very nice" he gave her a smirk.**

 **"Well I don't know, do you?"** she smiled as she sat down at the counter watching him cook **"Broadway style, my ass. I didn't know how to get out of there as fast as humanly possible, I could barely hold it together while I asked you that"**

 **"I do. Unless you`re telling me that you invite "just friends" to sleep with you in the same bed"** he smiled giving her a glass of wine. It didn't have any effect on them, but he still knew she enjoyed the taste regardless.

 **"No, Mr. Allen. I do not invite just friends to sleep in the same bed with me"** She smiled reaching over the counter and giving him a quick kiss and a flirty look.

 **"Then that settles that. I'm definitely sleeping at my girlfriend's place and you are that girlfriend. That should clear up everything nicely"** Barry smiled as he kissed her back.

 **"I guess I am. Boyfriend"** she smiled brightly and then threw Barry one of her patented flirty smirks. Barry had grown to like this … he didn't know what it was. The fact that they came home to one another, they cooked, they watched movies and told jokes. One day he even helped Caitlin cleanup the apartment, at normal speed which took quite a bit of that day, time which the two enjoyed every second of, bumping into each other, the quick kisses, the long embraces and everything else.

 **"You know what's weird?"** Barry spoke softly while checking to see if the spaghetti was done and continuing to stir in the pan.

 **"What?"** she asked getting herself another glass of wine from the fridge and pinching him while she was doing that.

 **"We're speedsters, we are used to speed and yet … every time we're together it's like I don't want to speed through everything. More like take it slow. Which is strange coming from me, I should know because after I became the Flash, I never thought I would actually hear myself say those words"** Barry was a bit flustered but his words were pretty clear.

 **"You aren't the only one that thinks like that. I enjoy taking things at a normal pace with you as well"** Caitlin found herself agreeing. **"There is something else I was thinking about actually"**

 **"Hmm?"** He looked into her eyes.

 **"Cisco told us that he has these dreams … could they be … memories?"** she asked

 **"What do you mean?"**

 **"Well, last week we did travel through time and to be perfectly honest we have no idea how temporal reversion can affect other people. What if the dreams Cisco has been having are actually things that happened in the other timeline"** Caitlin explained her thoughts

 **"You could be right, but why is it only for Cisco. Nobody else had those kinds of dreams or visions or whatever you can call them"** Barry muttered

 **"I don't know. The stranger part still is that those flashes you seem to be having … I don't think they are precognition either. They could very well be like Cisco. Memories of other timelines"** She offered

 **"Yeah, they could but ... how would that work? The first time I travelled through time was now with you, unless …"** the speedster got cut off.

 **"Unless you have travelled alone from further ahead or from a timeline where Frost didn't exist"** She completed his sentence

 **"You might be right. Then again, we have no clue to prove that. We kind of know the risks of time travel so ... if I did indeed come back and that is why I'm having those flashes, then something major made me do it, in order to totally ignore the implications"** Barry reasoned with himself, trying to find in his mind an event important enough that he would go back to the past to change it, damn be the consequences and then he found it, not by searching his mind, but by looking in front of him, to the beautiful woman that was his partner. She was priceless to him, someone who knew his struggles, helped him through everything and if she would die … he asked himself if he would break the timeline just to have her back. The answer came in less than a second and it was positive.

 ** _"You seem quiet. What are you pondering?"_** Caitlin asked mentally

 **" _Nothing. Just making a list in my head of things that might actually force me to jump times, to put right where once was wrong. Not knowing if my next leap, would be the leap home"_** He shrugged, while eating

 ** _"Really, Barry?"_ **She smiled getting the reference he made **" _So … what's the top thing on that list?"_** She asked while munching on some spaghetti, them talking mentally was very useful when they aspirated large plates of food.

 ** _"You"_** a simple answer came that made Caitlin stop eating for a minute with a very surprised look on her face, which cracked into a bright smile.

 ** _"I would break time in half if it meant getting you back, if you were ever taken away from me"_** she replied herself nonchalantly as they ate. Barry struggled not to let his jaw fall, but instantly getting a better picture about how much he meant to her.


	18. Stinger

Eddie and Joe were having fun. After they let Eddie in on their secret they could call on both Flash and Frost on whatever problem they had. That night there were at least 4 robberies that had to be stopped and the detectives' squad car was getting full. That is before Barry put Joe in one of the cars they were chasing giving them more room. The superheroes were surprised as to how people kept robbing places with the two of them protecting the city. Having Eddie along for the ride made it even easier to wrap up cases and criminals or so they thought. The next morning, they got called with a message marked urgent to a crime scene at the outskirts of the city.

 **"Her name is Lindsey Kang. She was an engineering professor; she just got tenure, poor thing. She was found a few hours ago in her car, the ME and his assistants had to break her arms and legs because she had frozen in the sitting position in the car"** Eddie was starting to get Joe up to speed when Barry and Caitlin arrived on the scene. Or better said appeared. As long as there were no people that could see them, or they had some place to stop, the two made quick work of actually moving from place to place. They would still need to remember to apply Cisco's treatment to every new pair of shoes they bought, but at least they didn't catch on fire anymore, which was handy. Before they arrived on the scene they did a few run a rounds with their speed, checking everything from the car where the woman had been found to an extensive survey of the wounds on her body, they usually took their time, since the scenes were filled with cops, this time however they managed to finish everything in under a few seconds while they stopped near the two people that were there.

 **"Hey"** they greeted the two detectives **"This looks like an animal attack; her whole body is covered in those puncture wounds you see"** Barry pointed toward the small protrusions all over the victim's body.

 **"Those look like sting marks or bite marks, whatever they are, she must have gone into anaphylaxis, but I'm going to get a blood sample which should tell us all we need to know"** Caitlin replied **"We can run tests back at the CCPD"**

 **"You can do it faster at STAR, can't you?"** Joe asked surprised.

 **"Sure we can but … it's kind of weird being there right now"** Barry answered.

 **"Barry, Caitlin, you know we have to play it cool with Wells. If he realizes something is wrong, he might run and if he is indeed a speedster, then we might never catch him again"** Joe brought reason to the conversation

 **"I guess that makes sense. All right, we should go. I'll call you with the results"** Barry told his foster father. They saw the two move toward the back of a house then two familiar streaks sped over in the direction of STAR.

An hour later after running tests on the blood they had gathered, Caitlin and Barry found something really interesting

 **"Death by apitoxin. That must be a really bad way to die"** They both said at the same time looking at each other

 **"That is starting to get freaky"** Cisco quipped **"Why did it have to be bees? I'll do sharks, crocodiles, snakes, spiders. Just not bees. Nobody got time for bees. I don't do bees"**

 **"Honey Bee venom?"** Wells joined the conversation **"That is interesting. When a honey bee stings, its stinger is literally torn from their abdomen and the bee dies. Did you find any of those in your victim?"**

 **"There were no stingers in the body"** Caitlin quelled that thought line

 **"No dead bees in the car either or on the person or anywhere in her clothes"** Barry finished

 **"A honey bee can only deposit 0.1 mg of apitoxin when it releases its stinger, but Ms. Kang was found with enough apitoxin in her system to kill a herd of elephants. By the sheer concentration that I found in her blood, even after some of it was metabolized, I would guess that she was hunted by at least a swarm of 200 bees"** Caitlin continued

 **"It appears that not only a metahuman is controlling these bees, but also increasing their toxicity"** Wells concluded **"IF he wouldn't do that, then the only way Ms. Kang would have gotten that concentration of venom in her system would be if she was repeatedly stung, which raises yet another question, since honey bees die after stinging once"**

 **"Bees communicate through pheromones. Maybe the Meta is controlling them through secretion. Or maybe there is someone that managed to produce the pheromones that incite the bees to attack and is using it to kill people"** Barry added.

 **"You mean something like a bee grenade? You put some pheromone in a container, let it loose somewhere or spray it on a person and … instant murder by bee?"** Caitlin tried to continue his thoughts.

 **"That would also work, however that would mean the person is just a normal human, not a meta. I guess we shall have to see where the evidence leads us"** the speedster replied to his partner.

 **"That's it. I'm going to get myself a bee keeper suit. Anyone want to join me? You know … for protection"** Cisco muttered

 **"Don't worry Cisco. I'm pretty sure we can outrun a bee. If not, Caitlin can always freeze them"** Barry smiled to the engineer as the doctor nodded

 **"Just don't run into a lake or in any body of water. Bees will wait for you to come up for air and then they'll sting you"** a familiar voice came from the entrance to the cortex. When they turned they saw Felicity there and they looked at her surprised **"What? Discovery channel has some very educational programs"** she smiled.

 **"Felicity, what are you doing here?" Barry asked nonchalantly**

 **"I actually came here because of a problem someone has. I thought you guys might help. Can you come outside?"** she asked. They all nodded and they exited out of the building through the back door. As they waited, they saw a figure flying through the sky

 **"Is that a bird?"** Caitlin asked

 **"No, it's a plane"** Cisco replied

 **"Actually, it's my boyfriend"** Felicity smiled at the figure who landed making a mess of the concrete in front of them.

 **"Oh man, and I thought I could actually end that with something else"** Cisco started to grin as he watched the person come closer to them

 **"Hi everyone, I'm Ray"** they looked at him in awe as they walked back to the Cortex

 **"I'm going to check his vitals. Make sure he didn't break anything on the way here, that landing didn't really seem like something a normal human body can take standing"** Caitlin announced and grabbed Ray motioning him to sit in a chair. On the other side of the glass, Barry and Felicity were having a little chat.

 **"He seems … tall, for you"** Barry smirked toward Felicity

 **"Barry Allen, are you jealous?"** Felicity laughed at him

 **"Oh. No. You got that wrong. I'm not jealous. Just stating the obvious"** he looked at Caitlin smiling **"I just wish you called before you flew in"**

 **"I drove. He flew"** Barry pulled her closer as for a hug but whispered in her ear.

 **"I'm serious. Now … is not the best time. There are some things that have been happening here and I don't want to put other people in danger"** she could see the cold glare in his eyes. Before they could continue, Caitlin and Ray came out of the medical area, Caitlin eyeing him intently while he was still hugging Felicity **" _Using the hug to whisper something in her ear. I can't really say anything out loud about Wells while he is around"_** he told her mentally and saw her nod.

 **"Well, my ears just popped, so that's something"** A happy Ray exclaimed

 **"You were lucky you didn't break your neck. What is it with billionaires and being superheroes? Is it some sort of trend? Or you guys really have too much free time on your hands"** Caitlin scoffed

 **"So, have you picked a name?"** Cisco asked ray

 **"I kind of like The Atom"** He responded prompting a weird look from Cisco, which did not reply back

 **"I'm impressed Mr. Palmer. Your ATOM suit is quite the feat of advanced engineering"** Harrison commented

 **"Yes, well thank you, I just can't seem to … keep it up"** Ray spoke

 ** _"Did he just say what I think he said?"_** Caitlin looked at Barry who was trying to hold back a severe burst of laughter

 ** _"I hope not, poor Felicity otherwise"_** the answer came

 **"He means the suit. Phrasing, honey, remember phrasing"** Felicity interjected with Ray trying to clear up the mess

 **"Yes. I mean the suit. Why would I be referring to anything else?"** Ray suddenly realized his mistake

 **"I can attest that everything works just fine, there's nothing to fix in THAT area"** Felicity was making it even worse by making hand gestures around Ray's crotch.

 ** _"At least it wasn't the first thing he said"_** Barry commented to Caitlin, which was snickering

 **"Yeah, the sex is great, no problem there"** Ray added literally making Barry and Caitlin explode into laughter.

 **"Oh god, there's two of them"** they both managed to utter between the laughing fits as Felicity and Ray looked at them realizing what they just said and blushing slightly.

 **"I know that you have been very helpful with the suits and … I hope you could take a look at my … problem"** Ray spoke

 **"Felicity, you should be the one to know this. Does he have a big problem?"** Caitlin put more gasoline on the fire while Barry was laughing so hard that he almost choked in the background. **" _Did you seriously ask Felicity if Ray has a large … problem?"_** Barry asked her laughing and when she nodded, he put his hand on his mouth and laughed even harder with her following in his footsteps. Felicity went dark red realizing what she was asking but trying to stay calm and collected she answered.

 **"At his suit. He still means his suit. No more talking about how big his problem is, all right?"** Felicity added, but her filter wasn't still fully on which lead Barry and Caitlin to laugh even louder. After about 15 minutes the two speedsters finally managed to stop laughing. Barry's sides actually hurt and he had been hiccupping.

 **"Any friend of the Arrow is a friend of ours, we will provide whatever assistance we can in solving your … issue"** Wells said avoiding the word which he realized would make the two speedsters start laughing all over again. Cisco however had to say something

 **"No matter how big or how small it is"** The words that came out of the engineer's mouth made Barry and Caitlin start to laugh all over again, this time however, they managed to calm down much faster than before.

 **"Guys, we kind of have our own metahuman problem to figure out. Don't forget that. The one that can control a whole swarm of bees making them super toxic and dangerous?"** Barry reminded them with a stern voice.

 **"Cool"** Ray exclaimed and the looked at Felicity who was giving him a **" _Really?"_** look. **"I mean, awful"** he corrected himself

 **"It's fine Barry. We can take care of ourselves"** Caitlin interjected **"If needed, Dr. Wells can provide us with support"**

 **"I will be happy to sit this one out and to help Ray with his suit"** Cisco said with a large smile on his face. Felicity saw something was happening, but something that could not roast Barry about while they were all here.

 **"Ray, you stay here with Cisco and work on your suit. Barry and I are going to go to Jitters to get some java"** she said

 ** _"Want me to come? Or …"_** Caitlin asked Barry out of reflex. She had no problem with him going out with Felicity for coffee, but she also knew the blonde, and this was most definitely not just coffee.

 ** _"Yea. I know why Felicity is dragging me out of here. She knows something is wrong and she wants to know what. It might be easier to explain if you`re there too and you can also give me a swift kick in case I start cracking"_** the answer came.

 **"I could use a cup of coffee as well"** Wells gave her a weird look **"What? I can't do anything here at the moment, the satellites are tasked to look for concentrations of heat or any sort of swarm activity. Besides we can both be back in less than it takes to blink, not like that's a big issue"** she replied prompting Wells to agree with her

 **"Wait, you can … huh?"** Ray looked at her strangely **"I thought there was only one Flash"**

 **"I didn't tell him about Frost, thought it was up to you if you wanted to share with the class or keep it to yourself"** Felicity looked at Caitlin and she understood that the blonde had not said anything about her.

 **"I'm not the Flash. I'm his partner. I go by Frost"** She answered taking the earrings out of cosmetic mode and zipping around Ray a few times whose eyes went wide seeing the beautiful silver blue color of her lightning.

 **"That is cool"** Ray said watching the changed Frost turning back into the mild mannered Dr. Caitlin Snow as she smiled toward the billionaire.

 **"So, coffee?"** she quipped moving toward the exit along with Barry.

 **"Yep"** Felicity replied going with them. The two speedsters flashed in the alley behind their favorite coffee shop and went inside sitting at their usual table.

 **"You know I left Starling City to get away from the mood and brood, but now it seems like it followed me here"** Felicity said in a grave tone

 **"Yea, it … just isn't the best time right now, Felicity"** Barry smiled weakly and Caitlin nodded.

 **"Barry, we have been friends for a long time and I know when you`re hiding something. Is this because I told Ray your secret? He's trustworthy, He wants to help people just like you"** Felicity asked and Caitlin shrugged.

 ** _"You know she'll try to break us and keep asking question after question until we at least give her something to go on"_** Barry thought

 ** _"That wouldn't be an issue, if she would keep asking us stuff outside the lab. However, the more she asks while Wells is present, the more suspicion we draw on ourselves and we can't keep cutting her out. You know how she is, the more we block her questions the harder she comes back. That trait is something I like in her, but in our case, it's only bringing down more suspicion on use when Wells is concerned"_** she replied.

 ** _"I guess we should give her ... something, then tell her to keep it a secret. That way we can get her off our backs for the time being while we take care of our more pressing problem. We can't tell her about Wells, not yet. We might be sure about him, but she could make a grave error and try to dig into this herself, which can get her seriously injured even with Ray protecting her or even worse. She could tip off the good doctor that someone is poking into his business and he could be gone the next day"_** the CSI concluded

 ** _"Well then … we can tell her about … I don't know, you and me? That should be enough to satisfy her inquisitive nature ... for now"_** Caitlin smiled and he nodded.

 **"You two are freaking me out. It's like you`re talking to each other, but not"** Felicity looked at them severely weirded out.

 **"Well, there is something, but we haven't told anyone. So …"** Caitlin added

 **"Yeah, I get it. Mum's the word. Wait … "we"?"** Felicity looked at them **"Barry?"**

 **"Yes, we. One thing we wanted to keep out of the lab until we think it's time and you asking questions would bring more attention to us, is the fact that Cait and I are dating"** Barry told her

 **"Wow. That's … something. Not how I wanted it to sound. It's amazing. I mean it would be since you spent 6 months trying to wake her up"** Felicity started her usual babble which made Barry chuckle

 **"There is more. Again, keep this to yourself at all costs. You said we looked like we talked to each other, but we weren't. We actually were. The lightning creating some sort of telepathic bond between Barry and me. We can actually talk in our heads"** Caitlin whispered. Felicity's eyes widened as she looked at them both.

 **"Wait, you can actually talk with each other in your heads?"** she whispered back **"That is so cool. I wish I had that with Ray"**

 **"It comes in handy, also we don't plan on telling anyone for now. It can be a powerful weapon in case we have … problems"** Barry stated bluntly.

 **"Well, congratulations. What can I say, except don't worry? I won't tell anyone. To be perfectly fair, I would have been surprised if you two didn't end up together"** Felicity stated enough to make the two give her quizzical looks **"Oh come on. The guy waits for you for 6 months, but calls on me and his foster sister to bathe you to not see you naked. He postpones his "wake up" to make sure you`re ok and then you two get superpowers and save the city together? That's like a better rewrite of any romantic comedy out there. It's a better love story than Twilight. Oh ... wait, never mind that last remark. Everything is a better love story than Twilight. Forget I said anything"** Felicity smiled at the two. The comment made Barry and Caitlin smirk one at another and then descend into laughter at the failed comparison the blonde had tried to make and failed brilliantly. She looked out the window and saw Eddie coming in and sitting down at their table.

 **"Hey Eddie, what's wrong man you look a bit … out of it. Are you all right?" Barry asked him "You remember Felicity, right?"**

 **"Vaguely, but yes. Sorry"** he managed to utter. The two had met earlier on one of her trips to Central City when Caitlin was still in a coma. The timing coincided with her being there when Iris and Eddie took a trip to the Labs.

 **"What is wrong with you? Is everyone in Central City in a bad mood? I thought this city was supposed to be the fun one"** Felicity saw the detective was kind of brooding.

 **"It's about … um"** he was asking Barry through his blue gaze if Felicity knew about him

 **"It's all right, Eddie, speak your mind. Felicity knows about … that"** Caitlin spoke seeing the look in Eddie's eyes

 **"Well, wow, so ... literally everyone knows except Iris ... huh?"** he said with a frown on his face. It was obvious that the secret was the source of his stress.

 **"Yeah, it's starting to feel that way, but it's not really something that we can change. What's up?"** Barry asked him

 **"There have been problems between me and her. She knows something is up with me, she came and asked about my totally bolstered arrest record, thank you two for that by the way. How do you lie to the people you love, Barry?"** Eddie asked with genuine worry in his look

 **"It helps a lot the fact that I don't lie to them"** the speedster said nonchalantly prompting a quizzical look from Eddie. That remark stirred a bit of thinking in Caitlin's mind. He was most definitely not telling Iris anything, but even if he didn't love her like he used to, she was still his family. The thought lingered in the back of her mind for a while, but the way he smiled back at her made the thought disappear.

 **"For a start, don't think of it as lying, think of it as protecting her from getting hurt. With a little fib, you know sometimes the only way to keep things running are little while lies" Felicity spoke**

 **"You know Iris, Eddie. If she knew who the Flash was then she would seriously be in danger, even you and Joe are, difference is you carry a gun and Felicity has her own … protector. At the moment, Iris has nobody that can be there 24/7 to protect her, not even us. You know how she is, she is inquisitive and stubborn and if she thinks she is on to something then she will jump into danger without thinking twice if it will give her more information. WE cannot change who she is, no matter how hard we try"** Caitlin replied, without mentioning anything about the Arrow or Ray

 **"The problem is Iris knows when I'm lying to her and it's putting this distance between us. I don't know how to fix it. I came to you guys for advice, I know I can't tell anyone what I know, but keeping that secret is something that is totally messing up my relationship with her"** Eddie looked totally lost at what to do and he was trying hard. It was clear as day that he didn't want to lose what he had with Iris. Barry started to think they had made a wrong move in telling Eddie their secret, but not because he couldn't be trusted, but because it might have totally killed his relationship with Iris. He knew his adoptive sister quite well, if it was something she didn't like, it was being lied to.

 **"How about dinner tonight. A little wine and dine to bridge the gap and we can bring our plus ones. While I don't think Iris would be interested in me and Ray that much, I am pretty sure that a night out with the man she loves would not be lost on her. What do you say?"** Felicity smiled in Eddie's face

 **"Mind if I bring Caitlin as my plus one? I don't want to feel like Barry Allen fifth wheel, like I usually do, that is if you agree, Cait"** Barry looked at his partner

 ** _"Well thought, Felicity might know about us but for now Eddie and the others don't need to. Us going as friends wouldn't really surprise anyone since we usually spend most of the day together"_** Caitlin thought

 ** _"Yeah, and to be fair, I REALLY hate being a fifth wheel at these types of events. I'd rather not go and watch Frozen with you 1000 times. Or just simply stay in, cook and enjoy your company. You know me, Cait, I'm not the type that likes to go to fancy dinners. Unless I'm the one planning them, at least then I know what to expect"_** Barry replied

 ** _"That's not the only reason, is it?"_** Caitlin read him quite well

 ** _"No. I really don't want to be there with Eddie and Iris. Not alone at least. Remember what happened last time? I suspect she is going to have the same shitty attitude. Ever since Christmas she has been avoiding me like the plague. I want to enjoy myself if I go there, and the only way that will happen is if you are with me. Not saying that I won't have fun with ray and Felicity, heck even Eddie is a chill dude, but I would rather have you there. If you don't want to go just say no, then I'll find some reason not to go myself. I'm not in the mood for Iris's shit"_** he replied with a grimace on his face. Felicity picked that up but said nothing, realizing the two were talking amongst themselves

 **"Sure, I got nothing else to do anyway. Caitlin Snow, fifth wheel rescuer at your service"** She smiled brightly and Felicity snickered.

 **"All right. Dinner it is then"** Eddie smiled **"Thank you, I really hope this gets sorted, I don't want to lose Iris over a secret that is not mine to share and over which I have no control" Barry's phone rang along with Caitlin's**

 **"Another bee attack. We need to go"** Barry spoke reading the text.

 **"I'll find Joe"** Eddie ran out of Jitters to his car **"Call us as soon as you need a police presence"**

 **"Bee careful"** Felicity quipped at the two superheroes

 **"For real?"** Barry looked at her with a weird face **"I know you sometimes have a particular brand of humor, but this was … well … bad"**

 **"Sorry, Sorry. Bad pun, I know, that was on me. Just don't die, all right? Both of you"** she smiled. The two speedsters nodded and raced out the door leaving her with three half-finished coffees.

Cisco and Ray were down in STAR Labs working on his suit when the metahuman alarm went off. The bees had been sighted in town and they were on the move as the two rushed back to the Cortex. Barry and Caitlin were on the scene but they found no sign of any sort of attack, except when they turned around, the bees started to come out from all around the room, including the vents, creases in the walls and the victim's mouth. Before the bees could reach Caitlin, Barry started to run around the room creating currents that kept her safe, however he got stung a few hundred times as Caitlin managed to get him out of the building. The bees were following them closely, but the moment they hit an entrance, an ice wall popped up making the bees collide with it. A few more ice walls were put up to keep the bees out long enough for Caitlin to bring Barry outside. He went into anaphylaxis and stopped breathing as soon as Joe got on the scene.

 **"Cisco, he's not breathing"** Caitlin yelled into the com

 **"We need to jumpstart his heart, but the defibrillators you have in your suits have been burned out by the last time you fought Black Out. I didn't have time to fix them, because the components they require are quite hard to find and the last shipment somehow ended up in Cancun"** Cisco was almost crying while saying that. Joe was performing CPR.

 **"Joe, get away. I'm going to try something"** Caitlin's face went serious and her hands started to vibrate, producing lightning. She touched Barry's chest and he jumped, but he was still not breathing, she could see zero pulse on her bracer.

 ** _"Come on you idiot, don't leave me now. I don't want to lose another person I love"_** her face changed and Joe saw that **" _I just admitted I love Barry Allen, while he's lying there with no pulse on the floor. Caitlin Snow, you are one weird woman. Still, that's something I think I needed to hear from myself"_** She smiled and her hands restarted to vibrate. The second time she tried Joe could see the lightning in her eyes and flowing off her, as she hit Barry with another electric shock, prompting him to take a gasp of air and then start to cough.

 **"Got him, he's breathing"** Caitlin said into the com system prompting Cisco, Wells and Ray to breathe a sigh of relief.

 **"Ow! That hurts. What did you do?"** he pouted at Caitlin

 **"Vibrated my hands to produce a high enough electrostatic charge to give you a shock. The defibrillator in your suit was out since our last encounter with BlackOut. It seems to have worked just fine, except, obviously I can't control the voltage that precisely, which is why you would be feeling that burning sensation in your chest"** she smiled

 **"You tried to fry me?"** he said with a smirk then took her hand **"Thanks for the jumpstart, Frost"**

 **"Joe, I'm going to take him to STAR, the bees should be out of the building, but you might need to knock out some ice walls on the way to your victim. Had to put them up so I could get the Flash out of there"** she said

 **"No problem. Make sure he gets treatment, Eddie and I will handle things here"** he responded as Frost took off and was already running with Barry toward STAR.

 **"I thought I was particular in me saying "don't die", wasn't I?"** A panicked Felicity entered the Cortex just as Caitlin was depositing Barry on a bed and drawing some blood

 **"She is very particular about that whole dying thing"** Ray joked enough to crack a smile on Barry's face.

 **"We tried, but the bees came out of nowhere, there were even some in the body I mean they started coming out of the man's mouth"** Barry tried to defend himself **"I'm really glad Frost can make ice walls right about now"**

 **"Barry, your system burned through the apitoxin already, your blood shows no signs of it. You`re in the clear"** a smiling Caitlin came to the med bay.

 **"Good"** he stood up taking a few practice laps around the room **"Felicity, Ray, Caitlin we don't want to be late for dinner, shouldn't we go change?"**

 **"Are you sure that's wise, Barry?"** Wells asked looking strange at him

 **"Barry, you just died. Don't you think maybe you should order in?"** Caitlin told him

 **"That's fine, we can totally cancel"** Ray added

 **"I'm fine. Alive. Dying made me very hungry. Let's go"** Barry responded **" _Besides, I wouldn't want to miss Caitlin Snow wearing that white number even if I had to go there in a wheelchair on a respirator and with my eyelids taped to my forehead"_** he smiled toward her, she didn't respond but nodded and started to move out of the cortex trying to hide her blushing face which he managed to get a glimpse of while she briefly turned to check who was coming **_"I'll come get you so you don't have to run in whatever you decide to wear. How much time do you need?"_** He asked her mentally

 ** _"Considering I don't live that far from the restaurant where Ray invited us? Come by like 10 minutes before the time we're supposed to be there?"_** She answered still trying to control her blushing

 ** _"Ok, I'll be there 15 minutes prior. Since Iris is present we'll have to speed near to the site and then walk, for … obvious reasons"_** He replied

 ** _"See you then"_** The answer came and the two were off

The speedster went home, took a shower since his body had itself a work out trying to eliminate or metabolize the apitoxin that he had present in his system and changed into a three piece black suit with a white shirt and tie. At the allotted time, he sped over to Caitlin's apartment and knocked on the door. He decided to be a gentleman about it even though now he had his own key. She came out

 **"Why are you even knocking, did you forget your keys?"** She chuckled. She was wearing the same dress that Barry had bought her for Christmas, completed by a fur shawl, which had on it the snowflake present that she had received from him as a Christmas present.

 **"Not really, I still have them. I thought since I was picking you up, it would be more polite to knock first. I see you like this dress"** Barry pointed out an obvious choice.

 **"I do, besides, it was a gift from you and I like how I look in it"** She chuckled

 **"Oh, I do too. Come on, I'll speed us there, I doubt you can run with that dress"** He smiled brightly

 **"No chance, unless I want to ruin it"** she grabbed a small purse and her heels exiting the apartment, Barry closing up. In a few seconds, he took her in his arms and ran toward the restaurant. The trip took a bit more than usual since the speedster took care that the wind shears didn't ruin her hairdo. They stopped a block away in an alley and started to walk arm in arm toward the location. Everyone else was already there, Iris already starting to give the couple the Stink eye. She saw that they were acting like they were together, even though nothing was said and they were only friends to the outside world.

The dinner was strange. Ray managed to pull an **"** _I'm a billionaire"_ card and rent the whole restaurant. That wouldn't have been an issue unless it was the most busy and expensive restaurant in Central City. Something that Felicity noted as being a bit _"overboard"_ even though Barry and Caitlin thanked him for it.

Everything seemed to be going along just fine… and then trouble started. Iris, who had a boyfriend, started giving Barry and Caitlin the stink eye ever since she saw the two approaching outside, but now it was starting to be even worse, reacting in about the same way that she did back at the Christmas party. Back then it was just between people that were family, now they were guests and they were people that were not family. Her behavior with people that were strangers to her denoted her actual feeling about the two that arrived. It was more than likely she was expecting good old single Barry as always. Her feelings didn't show that much, but in the talking that ensued she did make a few passive aggressive attacks at Caitlin, something that Barry thought as rude.

They talked about Ray and his company, the fact that he was now Felicity's boyfriend, which nobody expected, about how they two met, how they got together and what else had happened since the last time they met. Barry and Caitlin were just eating and talking to each other seemingly ignoring everyone, even though they did answer questions themselves like the usual … are you two dating or how come you came here together … and other things

 ** _"Is it just me or she is starting to be really nosey ever since Christmas?"_** Barry asked Caitlin while they were eating

 ** _"Didn't you say that she was avoiding you like the plague? What's with all the questions now?"_** the answer came while she was looking at him

 ** _"She was avoiding me. Now all of a sudden she's way too chatty, rude with you and to our guests with her stupid questions. I mean come on, we are here to meet Ray and talk with Felicity and she has been asking US questions all night"_** The speedster was very irked at his adoptive sister, so much so that he started to act really strange and Caitlin was very cold about everything so Felicity decided to call them outside for a bit

 **"Guys, what is wrong with you. You both seem tense, for two people that are dating you seem totally awkward here"** she whispered to the two

 **"First of all remember that these guys don't know where dating. Secondly, Felicity it's not the dinner, we enjoy Ray's company, yours and Eddie's, but Iris has been acting rude and annoying all night. Something that she has done before when Caitlin and I were concerned. She almost managed to ruin our last Christmas party with her acting like a spoiled brat. Besides that, we have a lot of stuff to worry about right now"** Barry finally spoke. She wanted to ask what, but Caitlin immediately continued

 **"Dr. Wells might be the man that killed Barry's mother. We have our doubts about him and we would like not to put anyone in danger, especially someone like you and Ray who have no link to him whatsoever. He is known for killing people just for trying to write something about him the wrong way. Imagine what would happen if you would try to poke into his business"**

 **"Wow, but … how? Isn't he the one helping you? I mean ... he trained you, saved your life and helped you speed up ... Now all of a sudden this comes to light?"** Felicity couldn't believe her ears.

 **"I know. There, now you know why we have been acting the way we have. It's not something we would like to drag you into. This is something we have to solve for ourselves"** Felicity saw how worried they were just imparting that information to them. Then his cell beeped with the words on the screen _"Help. Bee loose in Lab."_ from Cisco. **"There's a one of those metahuman bees in the lab. We need to go"** Barry told Felicity just as Ray came out to them.

 **"Go. We'll be fine here. I hope"** Felicity spoke just before they saw Iris storm out through the front door. Barry had been keeping an ear on the conversation the two were having while they thought they were alone. It was especially easy since Iris decided it was time for a shouting match. **"Or not"** she almost face palmed when she saw her leave.

 **"Let's go with them. Iris left, you two need to leave and Eddie got a call which I assume he has to go as well. I'll get the other 20 courses to go"** Ray blurted out and they all chuckled

 **"All right. Sorry if Iris ruined the dinner with her interference"** Barry picked up Ray and Caitlin picked up Felicity and they were gone to STAR.

As they arrived they found Cisco hunting a bee which was going toward Wells. Barry managed to catch it. As they put it under the microscope, it became obvious that it wasn't a real insect. It was a miniature robot, which was interesting because the second person that was attacked was a roboticist. Cisco had gone to the station to get the data on the guy earlier. The bee was definitely very advanced, it had a 360 degree vision angle and a power source so small to feed it. The components required to create something like this were definitely not on the market, this was not the work of a metahuman. This was your garden variety human mad scientist with a passion for robotics.

Thanks to Felicity's fast hacking skills, they found out that both victims worked at Mercury Lab so ... they went there to warn Tina McGee, the head of Mercury about the impending threat. She has always had a disdain for Wells, it was clearer now as they talked.

 **"Doctor you had two employees here, Bill Carlyle and Lindsey Kang, they were murdered this week"** Joe handed Tina a couple of pictures.

 **"I … had no idea"** her face obviously shocked by the news.

 **"Their deaths were ... quite interesting"** Wells added

 **"If you can call stung to death by robotic bees, interesting"** Caitlin replied

 **"You're looking for Brie Larvin. She was one of the most promising roboticists here at one point. She developed miniature mechanical bees for the agricultural process. Carlyle and Kang warned me that Brie was weaponizing the bees for the military, doing so without my approval, so I terminated her"** Dr. McGee said quite calmly after taking a few moments to gather her thoughts

 **"But if that's true, wouldn't you be on her kill list too?"** Barry asked

 **"Maybe you should think about letting us protect you"** Joe added

 **"I'm perfectly capable of looking after myself, thank you"** Tina added quite sharply **"by the way, did you ever find that tachyon accelerator prototype we lost?"**

They all looked at each other and left the building, Dr. McGee managing to catch them off guard. They had indeed not managed to recover her tachyon prototype, not for lack of trying.

 ** _"I'm going home. I have a feeling Iris will be there and I really need to talk to her"_** Barry told her.

 ** _"Don't be too harsh on her. We have no idea what her reasons are. They might even be good ones"_** She replied

 ** _"Cait, I don't really care about her reasons. She behaved like a spoiled brat tonight. No matter how good those reasons are, you do not ruin someone's dinner, especially when there aren't only family members there. She should have kept her trap shut, for the sake of politeness at least. I either find out why, or tell her to get the hell out of my life. I'm tired of her crap"_** the speedster had anger in his eyes as he flashed straight home, knowing he'd find Iris there. Caitlin and Felicity went back to the lab to see if they could find anything else on the mad roboticist that had a knack of building mini poison injectors to help her victims cross into the afterlife.

 **"So, you`re really staying here tonight"** Barry came through the door seeing Iris on the couch. A sight that usually calmed him, but now only brought him annoyance and disdain.

 **"Tonight, tomorrow night and who knows how long. Barry, do you think Eddie is cheating on me?"** she asked.

 **"No. Eddie is a good man. However, before we get to that. Let's talk about that passive aggressive attack you tried to pull on Caitlin. What the hell was that? She was my guest. This isn't the first time that you tried that shit either. Don't you think we've lived together long enough for me not to notice you leaving a Christmas party early because you happened to have the worst demeanor in the house. That same behavior that was incidentally destroying the mood of the other people who were there just to be with family and have some fun?"** Barry said with a raspy voice

 **"It was usually just you me and friends. Now all of a sudden you bring Caitlin, it was just unexpected"** she tried to defend herself, although she knew that wasn't really it

 **"Oh, really now. You said "you, me and friends". What the hell do you think Caitlin is? Figure this, I consider her more like family then a friend, so her being there was as much of a thing as you being there"** Barry cut her off 

**"I didn't know you two became … friendly that fast. I can wonder can I?"** Iris spoke, but it was obvious to Barry by now that she only tried to weasel her way out of her behavior.

 **"For real? You`re just going to lie to my face now, aren't you? I have known you for the last 13 years. I could see the little green eyed monster in your eyes. You were jealous. It was the same thing that became clear when Caitlin showed up all elegant back at the party. But you know what? You have no right to be. You were too blind to see how much I loved you all these years, while going off with other people and coming home to drabble to me about what happened. It tore me up inside each and every time. Think I felt better when I fell into my coma and you immediately start dating Eddie?"** Iris's face fell in surprise. **"I was a third and fifth wheel long enough. I have gotten tired of it and gotten over it and the moment I bring someone with me, you act like a spoiled brat who got her lollipop taken away from her? I think you need to grow the hell up, Iris. Or at least admit to yourself that while you`re supposed to be in love with Eddie, you act like you have feelings for me as well, because I cannot see another reason that you would behave the way you did"**

 **"Barry"** she tried to get a word in but didn't manage, Barry was too annoyed to let her utter another word.

 **"No, how about you stop trying to explain yourself with lies and listen to what I have to say for a change. Caitlin Snow is a classy, beautiful, smart woman, who has always been next to me when I needed help, she's been helping with my CSI cases on the side because she wanted to. She has rapidly become my best friend, besides Cisco, that best friend which I thought I had in you, but apparently, I didn't. I found it totally stupid that if by any chance I have a good friend that is a woman, you apparently go all Ms. Hyde on her"** he said thinking **" _And more than a friend, someone I can count on and someone who I love. Wait, what? Did I just say what I thought I said ? I just said it. I love Caitlin Snow. Nothing really surprising there, I guess I just needed a bit of rage to make that clear to myself"_** His face lightened up with that realization but he continued **"What is your damage? Do you have so little self-esteem that you think Eddie is cheating on you or that the moment someone takes away the spotlight you`re in, you become a moody teenager?**

 **Maybe neither, maybe you just are as blind as you were with me, not seeing how the man idolizes the ground you walk on. He is a cop, his job involves seeing mangled bodies and death all over. Its dark, it's dreary and depressing. I never came home to tell you about my cases. The tons of headless corpses, bloaters or rotting dead bodies I found. Not like you ever cared enough to ask me about my work, since you were always more interested to tell me about your prospects than listening to mine. That is how it's always been, you came first and I was just there as the "shoulder to cry on" It's his darkness something you don't understand and if he wants to keep it away from you, to keep you the light in his life, then let him. Stop acting like you`re entitled to know everything about him. You aren't and all you`re doing is destroying something that is beautiful.**

 **You know what you are now? Imagine a beautiful rose that's coming out of the ground, a blood red rose. Then an idiot comes and takes a shovel to that rose turning it into muck. You're the idiot and the shovel in this scenario. I swear it's like you love to sabotage yourself. I can see how much he loves you, because I USED to be him. Nevertheless, if you come home running from something as small as him not telling you some things… here's a reality check. We all have things that we don't tell anyone and things that we swore to never share, it's just a part of who we are and if you think about ending this relationship because of something as small as this, then here's a news flash. It's not like he doesn't deserve you, like I heard you tell him, because it was impossible not to hear you turning a quiet dinner between friends into a bloody shouting match that was of course about you, you don't deserve HIM"** He managed to take a breath as he finished.

Iris was left frozen by Barry's drabble. Everything started to make so much sense now and indeed she was blind. She had never picked up on Barry liking her, but she would always like him around and do stupid stuff when he had someone near. She was totally taken aback by the fact that he had read her so well and her reasons to leave the Christmas party early as well.

 **"So, I take your silence as the fact that everything I said is true. How totally not surprising"** Barry sat on the comforter next to her with a mildly disgusted face. Iris barely managed to articulate a few words with the bomb that he had just dropped on her head. If you could call it a bomb, it was more like taking an axe to a 400 year old tree and hitting it until it was in pieces small enough to be used for firewood.

 **"Why … why do you care about me and Eddie?"**

 **"Because I have moved on, but that doesn't mean I hate you. I will always love you because you are part my family, I am also your friend, even if in the last few months you acted like I didn't really exist. Sometimes friends have to give you a swift kick in the butt with a metal tipped boot so that you realize that you screwed up. What I told you right now was my way of using that metal tipped boot on you to wake you up"** Barry said with a straight face. **"You are happy with him. I can see on your face how miserable you are right now. I saw on his face how miserable he was. All because what? He's keeping a few things from you? Where's the trust? You want him to trust you with everything in his life and yet you don't trust him when he tries to keep you out of something for your own good and comfort. Really, double standard much?"** the speedster spoke with a grave voice

 **"I guess … I guess I should call Eddie and apologize, huh?"** she looked at Barry with red eyes still trying to process the nuke that he had dropped on her head.

 **"Gee, ya think? How is that even a question"** Barry smiled at her.

 **"Thank you, Barry. I guess I needed a bit of a reality check"** She managed to speak before his phone rang.

 **"You`re welcome. Don't think I'm afraid of using this boot again if I have to. I have to go, somethings going on at STAR and you have somewhere to be. Take care of yourself, Iris"** Barry smiled as he went out the door. Moving far away from the house and started to run toward the labs. The smack down he had put on Iris gave him something he had never felt in a long while. Everything that he wanted to tell her came to light, leaving him without the heavy heart he had before. In one swift move he had managed to get everything off his chest and, hopefully, save her relationship with Eddie. For the first time in a long time, he felt truly free.

Caitlin and Felicity were checking out Cisco and Ray hard at work on his new suit, Caitlin looked at her friend and saw the way her eyes moves when he looked at Ray

 **"Ray seems like a pretty nice guy"** she smiled

 **"Yes, he's nice, handsome, smart. It's almost like I was dating Barry in Oliver's body"** the moment she heard herself her eyes went wide **"And you will never repeat that to anyone else. Also I didn't mean to … you know … offend you"** the blonde tried to excuse herself.

 **"Your secret's safe with me. Also … why would you offend me?"** Caitlin asked rather surprised.

 **"Well, because, you know, you`re dating Barry and I just made a … strange comment"** Felicity dropped her voice so the others wouldn't hear.

 **"If you were single, I might have been, but you`re with Ray I don't feel offended in the slightest. Besides, I'm not into bodies like Oliver's, I like the slim, lean athletic type, that can runs faster than the wind and with chiseled abs and strong arms"** she realized that she had been going on describing Barry in great detail so she stopped herself and started to blush.

 **"Oh, you got it bad girl, so, so bad"** Felicity whispered looking at how he talked about her boyfriend. The blonde looked at the screen and saw that the robotic bee had been reactivated. As the alarms blared, Barry flashed into the cortex as Felicity went to the consoles.

 **"The bots are running on a wireless signal, I can track them to see where they`re going"** Felicity stopped **"Oh, boy. The swarm is headed for Mercury Labs"**

 **"Brie Larvin is going after Tina"** Wells said

 **"How do we stop them?"** Barry asked after suiting up, Caitlin was there right beside him in her Frost suit with her earrings turned off.

 **"You two have to take out Brie. She's probably piloting the bees from somewhere"** Wells added

 **"Got it. An abandoned greenhouse right outside the city" Felicity pointed to a spot on the map "That is where the control signal is coming from"**

 **"What about Tina?"** Caitlin asked

 **"The defibrillators in your suits are trashed. None of you can risk going toward Mercury Labs right now. Besides Barry might need you with him"** Cisco joined

 **"Bees can't penetrate my suit"** Ray spoke **"I'll go to Mercury and stall Brie's bots while you take her out. I might be even able do damage or destroy some of them"**

 **"Whoa. We haven't tested out the new power system. We don't even know if it will even work"** Cisco reminded Ray

 **"I guess we'll test it now"** the man smiled toward the engineer.

 **"I'm following you"** Cisco ran to get his gear

 **"I'll be driving"** Bette said from the door **"Glad I wasn't far from the labs. Barry thought you might need some help"**

 **"Mr. Palmer will protect Tina. Go you two, the best chance they have not to be hurt is you taking out the crazy woman that's behind the controls of this on demand killer bee squad"** he almost yelled at Barry and Caitlin. The two got the warehouse in time only to find out that Brie had kept quite a lot of her bees behind.

 ** _"What do we do? We thought this was going to be clear"_** Caitlin asked Barry

 ** _"I know, remember that blue fog you put out when you were crazy angry? Can you flood the greenhouse with it?"_**

 ** _"I could, but I don't know if it works on robots"_** She said eyeing him

 ** _"Yes, but it will work on Brie. You make the fog ill blow it inside"_** the speedster replied and she realized where he was going with it.

 **"Felicity, if we incapacitate Brie can you hack the bots frequency and shut them down?"** Barry asked as funnels from his hands filled the warehouse with fog that Frost was producing.

 **"I'm already hacking them, if she stops resisting I can have them off in less than a minute"** the answer came through the comms **"And the bots are down. How did you incapacitate Brie? Wasn't she protected?"**

 **"Let's just say it was a little more than usual teamwork, but still something that we had to pull off together"** Barry smiled as he told Felicity that, flashing into the greenhouse after they cleared it with gusts of wind and shackling Brie Larvin to her chair far away from the bee controls. As they got out, Barry took Caitlin in his arms and kissed her gently holding her close to him

 ** _"Nice teamwork, Frost"_** he thought while they were still kissing

 ** _"You weren't so bad yourself, Flash"_** Then they heard a yell through the com.

 **"Get over to Cisco, he's down"** when they heard that the two stopped and ran like bats out of hell over to the waterfront where Cisco was lying flat on the road.

 **"What happened?"** both speedsters asked at the same time

 **"He was stung by a bee that tried to sting me. He jumped in front of me and it got him"** Bette stood there with tears in her eyes

 **"He's allergic and he's going into anaphylaxis. His heart has already stopped"** Caitlin said **"Barry, try the defibrillator. After the fog thing I don't think I have enough focus to control the voltage and I don't want to fry him"** Barry vibrated his hands, lightning started to came off them and shocked Cisco as he woke up with a hard breath and gasping for air

 **"Either my fear of bees is over, or it just got a whole lot worse"** he said with a weak smile. Everyone looked at him. His personality was the same as always. He nearly died and he was cracking jokes. Barry and Caitlin just sat down in the middle of the road like they had gotten rid of a 50 ton weight they were carrying around.

 **"I've never had someone take a bee for me"** Bette smiled hugging Cisco as the two superheroes were grinning. **"I can't actually believe I said that. I must be spending too much time around this nerd"** Bette grinned

 **"You`re a hero man"** Ray added.

The next day Tina McGee showed up at Barry's lab while he and Caitlin were working. She came to apologize for not taking their offer to protect them and to tell them to thank the **"flying man"** that saved her that night. Barry prodded a little deeper.

 **"Dr. McGee, I couldn't help but observe the animosity between you and Dr. Wells. Can you … tell me what happened?"** he asked.

 **"Fifteen years ago I and he were best friends. Promising young scientists in Starling City that were on the verge of doing great things. Then ... Tess, his fiancée, died. I know how grief changes a man over the loss of a loved one, but this ... this was different. After her death, it seemed like Harrison Wells had become another man entirely"** And that was as much as she would want to share.

 **"Thank you"** Caitlin replied

 **"Take care and if you ever need something, or help. Call me immediately. I might not like Harrison, but you two and your friends did save my life. It's the least I can do to repay the favor"** Tina answered leaving the lab.

 ** _"He changed after his fiancé died. Remember that image of the bridge I showed you?"_** Barry continued **" _I think that is where Harrison Wells died that night"_**

 ** _"What do you mean died? He's very much alive"_** Caitlin answered not taking her sight off her work

 ** _"The person, the one that Tina knew. He died and this Wells came into being. We need to go to Starling city, find out where that crash happened 15 years ago and see what we can find"_** Barry explained.

 ** _"Both of us can't be gone at the same time"_** Caitlin reminded him

 ** _"We won't. I'm sending Bette and Cisco. She will know what to look for when it comes to evidence and Cisco will deal with the science. We can always run there if needed and come back. Joe might be a good choice as well. He can liaison with the SCPD and maybe get a lead from there"_** he replied.

 ** _"Think we can trust Bette? We didn't bring her into this from the start"_** Caitlin didn't know what to think about her.

 ** _"Bette is thankful to us. She might not be happy if we ask her to do it, but Wells had nothing to do with saving her. I doubt she has any kind of allegiance to him. I guess we shall see. It's time we find out what really happened that night"_** Barry finished.


	19. Identity

Cisco and Caitlin were back at Joe's house. They had called Bette and Joe as well. Cisco thought it prudent to have a scrambler on him, for some reason that nobody else could comprehend, but they let him have it anyway. The city had been confronted with a string of robberies in which the suspects were seemingly unaware that they committed the crimes, so Eddie was down at the precinct trying to get that sorted.

 **"Cisco, did you manage to make that tachyon detector we were talking about?"** Barry asked entering the lobby with a bunch of Coast City pizzas, prompting a smile from Caitlin.

 **"Yes, it's back in my lab at STAR"** he nodded opening the first box and taking in sweet aroma of pepperoni.

 **"Hey, guys"** Bette entered the room and flashed Cisco a smile **"What's the occasion?"**

 **"Hello, everyone"** Joe greeted as he came inside as well.

 **"We need to talk. We need to bring Bette up to speed as well and I need to ask a favor of you"** Barry spoke

 **"Sure. What do you need me to do?"** Bette answered sitting on the sofa with Joe next to her. Her willingness to do everything she could, for the people that helped her, was … refreshing and welcomed.

 **"We have had some suspicions about Dr. Harrison Wells"** Caitlin started **"Some of the things that he does do not add up. So … we started digging into his health"**

 **"We did not find anything that could testify to him actually being paralyzed, furthermore something happened a little while back that kind of confirmed our suspicions, in not so many ways"** Barry continued

 **"So ... what did you find out?"** Bette continued looking quizzically at them

 **"Long Story short, Harrison Wells might be the Reverse Flash. The man who killed my mother and the rogue speedster we tried to capture a while ago, ending with Wells being injured"** Barry sighed.

 **"Wait, but ... how? He's been helping you with all the metahumans and other problems?"** Bette looked surprised

 **"We don't know. Nevertheless, even if he isn't the man in the yellow suit then I'm pretty sure he at least knows him."** Caitlin said

 **"Which comes down to the favor I want to ask you. I need you and Cisco to go to Starling City, find out where that crash occurred and see what you can find out. Joe should come with you in case police assistance is required, maybe ask around the SCPD precinct for clues"** Barry let out another sigh. Caitlin could feel the sadness come off him, but she couldn't comfort her partner with everyone here **"Caitlin and I would go, but it would seem pretty weird if we both take days off at the same time and if a metahuman attacks, the city would be in danger"**

 **"Or it would seem you two eloped to Bali to get away from it all"** Cisco cracked, the atmosphere was rather serious so the two managed to stifle their respective blushes.

 **"Or that, but it would attract unwanted attention. Cisco taking a few days won't be a problem, especially if he mentions Bette to Wells"** Barry smirked prompting a blush from Bette's cheeks.

 **"What do you mean?"** Cisco's eyes went wide

 **"Let's just say … Wells thinks you two are dating"** Caitlin quipped.

 **"Oh, it explains him asking me stuff about my social life"** the engineer smiled.

 **"But we aren't dating"** Bette reasoned

 **"That doesn't really matter, the fact that Wells believes it makes your reason to leave quite genuine. How about it guys?"** Barry questioned

 **"I'm in"** Bette said without even thinking **"You know I'll do anything I can to help you guys in return for what you did for me. This is no different"**

 **"Well Bar, you know I'm in. If we can catch this bastard then I'm all for it"** Joe announced.

 **"You don't even have to ask, my man. I'm totally in. Besides I get to try out my new toy at the scene of a crime"** Cisco fanboyed about his new detector. Barry and Caitlin smiled brightly at the rag tag group of people, which even on a small suspicion was ready to help. Caitlin realized that Barry was right, this had indeed become their family.

 **"All right. When can you guys leave?"** Caitlin asked

 **"We can leave now. The sooner the better. And Cisco can call Dr. Wells and as for some … ahem … time off"** Bette spoke and everyone else who had to leave with her nodded and also made Cisco blush. Barry's cell rang.

 **"What's up Eddie?"**

 **"I think I might have eyes on the person that robbed the banks. Oh damn. He's made me. I could really use some extra speedster help right about now"** Eddie told them through the line.

 **"Got to go"** The two heroes flashed toward the city finding Eddie in a fight with an unknown man. The moment he managed to push him back, he turned into a teenage girl, at one point there were two of the girl sitting in front of our heroes, then she turned the corner. When they turned the corner themselves the girl was gone.

 **"Well. That was new"** the Flash exclaimed looking at his partner **"Now what?"**

 **"Back to STAR I guess"** she shrugged after looking at Eddie **"We'll try to get to the bottom of this, Detective"** and they both left the scene

 **"Shapeshifter"** muttered Barry after they went back to the labs and changed to their usual attire **"That's everything we need right now"**

 **"A shapeshifter, Barry?"** Wells asked with an incredulous look on his face

 **"We literally saw a grown man morph into a teenage girl. If it would be only on the outside, that wouldn't be a problem, but the two people were of different builds and height as well"** Caitlin added scanning their suits for residue

 **"What is fascinating. Today's physicists have always regarded programmable matter as nothing more than a theory, but I guess your shapeshifter proved otherwise"** Wells added.

 **"So what you`re saying is, he, she, it, this person, can transform into anyone they touch? " Barry asked Wells.**

 **"Apparently so, and they might be able to copy your powers as well, we don't know yet. So for now …" the doctor added**

 **"Hands off the metahuman. Yea I got it"** Barry was getting annoyed

 **"Yes, we need to not touch him, if he transforms into you while you have your flash suit on, or into me while I'm Frost, we run the risk of everyone else finding out who we are. That is not something we actually want"** Caitlin chimed in

 **"So, how do we find a person that can look like anyone?"** a very good question was asked.

 **"Go back to the root of the problem. To where it all began. In this case, find the first person this shapeshifter morphed into"** Wells smiled.

 **"I might have an idea. Can you pull up all the cases from the CCPD where the perpetrators pleaded innocent"** Caitlin started only to have her sentence finished by Barry

 **"Even if there was irrefutable video evidence that they committed their respective crimes. I got where you`re going with this, Cait"** He smiled

 **"Oh you guys are good"** Wells exclaimed with a surprised look on his face pulling up the police search Felicity left them with and imputing the sears parameters **"Look at this, multiple crimes, of this manner all dating back to a month after the particle accelerator explosion. The first one is of a teller that says he was framed by his former best friend and coworker, Hannibal Bates"**

 **"I'll pass this along to the CCPD, see if they can track him down. Thank you, Dr. Wells"** Barry put his coat on to go down to the precinct **"Cait, you coming?"**

 **"No. Come back when you can I might need some help though. I'm going to try to see if I can find a way to stop this guy's cells from changing. I managed to get some weird residue off the shield from my suit. I'm assuming that got there when he shoved us aside"** She waved him off

At Starling City PD, Joe, Cisco and Bette were discussing the case with Captain Quentin Lance. The way the events happened was pretty cut and dried. That night Wells and his fiancée Tess were driving back home. One of the tired blew, he lost control of the car and crashed. She died on the scene. While they were discussing the case a blond woman entered the room.

 **"Excuse me, captain, I need those witness statements in order to be able to go through with the case"** The two looked strangely at the visitor

 **"Oh, sorry guys. Bette San Souci, Cisco Ramon, Joe West this is ADA Laurel Lance"** He introduced everybody.

 **"Lance, as in … any relation?"** Joe asked

 **"Yes, she's my daughter"** He nodded **"You'll have them by the end of the day, Laurel. Just like we discussed"**

 **"You work at STAR with Barry Allen don't you?"** she asked prompting a nod from the engineer **"Mind if I talk to you in private for a minute?"** Laurel dragged Cisco to an adjacent room making the people present look at each other, making Bette cringe a bit.

 **"So, how do you know Barry Allen? You good friends or ... something?"** the engineer asked

 **"Not really. We met last time he was here. Visiting my good friends, Oliver Queen, John Diggle and Felicity Smoak"** she smirked

 **"Three people that have … no relation to one another, I'm sure"** Cisco replied almost automatically

 **"Cisco, I know Barry is the Flash, Caitlin is Frost and Oliver is the Arrow"** she whispered

 **"How, wait, no … How do you know?"** He looked amazed

 **"Because I'm Black Canary"** she looked at Cisco starting to fanboy out

 **"Stop playing. Wait. You`re not kidding, are you?"**

 **"Not in the slightest"** Cisco was faced with a smiling Laurel Lance.

 **"But … why tell me that?"** he asked

 **"I kind of … need some technical expertise. I've been using my sister's sonic device, but I thought you might be able to … modify it. You know, give it an upgrade"** she said giving Cisco a small round object.

 **"Yeah"** he grinned **"I might have … some ideas for this. I'll get it back to you before we have to leave here"**

 **"Thank you** " she smiled **"I guess I'll see you around"**

After this exchange went down, the captain tool them to the site of the accident where they discovered something in the woods, thanks to Cisco's tachyon detector and to the fact that Captain Lance's coffee started to float all of a sudden. There was a body buried deep underground, which gave off a tachyon signature. Like the people in the Mercury Labs incident. While the guys were digging up the body, helped by Bette which whined when Cisco excused himself back to the van, the engineer was working on the device the Canary gave him. He turned it into a collar for one, something that would transform her own voice into a sonic attack and he managed to make it smaller for convenience. After they got the body in the van they returned to the precinct, thanking Captain Lance for his help, which was quite surprised that they actually found something in a cold case from 15 years ago, but was happy to help nonetheless. Laurel was still around and the time it was Cisco's turn to drag her away.

 **"Ms. Lance, mind if we talk in private for a minute?"** Cisco asked the blonde woman that was ruffling some file folders.

 **"Yes, sure"** they went back to that same room and Cisco closed the door presenting her with a small square case in a gift box. From the outside it looked like he was giving her a present **"Were you able to make that, item, I asked you for?"** she asked looking at the engineer.

 **"Take a look. I think that will do the trick"** he replied grinning. In the box there was a collar **"I managed to bump up the specs. Tripled the resonance, quadrupled the range and doubled the amplitude. You should be able to cause some serious damage with this. Or if you set it on low, the stun effect it produces is quite good as well"**

 **"Wow, I can't believe you were able to make it so quickly"** she had a large smile on her face.

 **"Eh. I've had some practice with sound waves recently. I think you should call it, the canary cry. Because, you know"** Cisco smiled at the ADA, which gave him an envelope

 **"You show that to anyone, I'll kill you. Also thank you for making this"**

 **"It was my pleasure"** He opened the envelope as she left. Inside there was a picture of him and her in her Canary outfit. Cisco grinned as he put the picture back in the envelope.

While this was happening, back in Central Barry and Eddie discovered that there was a living relative of Hannibal Bates. His grandmother, who had filed a missing person's report a while back. Bates himself hadn't been seen since the particle accelerator explosion so the two thought that it would be a good idea to go see the relative. Caitlin was still at the lab to working on a way to stop the metahuman's cells from changing.

Nevertheless, there was a complication. His grandmother was in fact Bates in disguise. The man ran out and turned into Eddie, shooting two cops that had arrived on the scene as backup then left. The Flash took the cops to the nearby hospital not wanting to wait for an ambulance, but much to his dismay, Eddie was taken into custody for attempted murder. He was caught on the police car video camera when he shot the cops.

 **"Allen, I hope you have a good explanation for this"** Captain David Singh personally came down to the interrogation room and was watching Eddie Thawne.

 **"I don't, but I am going to try my best to get one"** Singh looked at Barry then nodded as he left for his lab to do gunshot residue tests on samples that were taken from Eddie's hands and clothes. He came back barging into the room as the DA tried to roast Eddie.

 **"There is no residue on Detective Thawne's hands or jacket. He did not fire a gun anywhere in the last three days"** Barry gave the results to the woman that was with Eddie in the interrogation room.

 **"Yet, no one can explain how the surveillance video clearly shows him firing his weapon at those cops"** she hissed mildly annoyed

 **"It only looked like him"** Barry defended his friend **"There is no way he could have fired those shots without him getting residue anywhere on him"**

 **"Mr. Allen, no"** the DA tried and Barry cut her off rather abruptly

 **"Without proof from a GSR swab that he actually fired the gun, you do not have a case against him. Sure, there is the video, but the evidence says otherwise. Miss, no offense, but Eddie is my friend and I am the resident CSI here. You have put a LOT of people behind bars because of my work. If you have any faith in what I do, you'll let me prove that he is innocent"** Barry told the woman, quite frankly and with a determination that actually impressed her. She decided to let him have his time, although she was firmly convinced that Eddie was the shooter.

 **"You have 24 hours. Detective Thawne stays behind bars. If you do not find anything until then, I'm taking him to court. Nothing personal, but cop killers have a way of getting under everyone's skin"** She said with a glare

 **"I would beg to differ. The officers are fine. I called the hospital specifically for that. Thank god the Flash was around to take them there as soon as possible"** Barry voiced.

 **"Even so, attempted murder on a police officer is still a pretty serious offense, especially when another cop is the one that did the shooting. Remember, Mr. Allen, 24 hours. That is all that I'm giving you to clear this mess up"** The DA replied and left the room. In a moments call Barry flashed Eddie outside the precinct.

 **"It's hard to blame her, that video was pretty damning. Seeing is believing, Barry"** He sighed **"I might even get kicked off the force for this"**

 **"Look, go to STAR, Caitlin can set you up with one of our comms. Felicity made them practically untraceable. Stay there until I figure this out"** Barry told him.

 **"Barry, you don't get it. If I run now, that video will be the last of my problems. The DA will prosecute me for escaping anyway. I would smell guilty from a mile away. If we don't clear this I'm definitely looking at jail time"** Eddie tried to explain to Barry that he wouldn't run

 **"Look. Eddie. You`re my friend .You said it yourself. If we don't find Hannibal Bates, you go to prison. I'm not going to let anyone go to the big house for a crime they did not commit. Not again. I've had enough of that"** Barry was starting to get angry

 **"Don't compare me to your father. You were just a kid then. You aren't one now. You are a scientist and you are the Flash. You have another brilliant CSI in Caitlin that can help you. You two can find Bates and I know you'll get me cleared. So go do it"** The detective replied, his eyes showing the conviction he had to ride this out and the trust that he had put on Barry to exonerate him. The speedster saw that and flashed him back to the interrogation room **"Now, how about you get me out of here. The right way, hmm?"** he smiled. Barry nodded and left for his home to change when he had a surprise visit, from Eddie.

 **"How are you out man?"** he was definitely surprised.

 **"I got a judge to sign me out on an early release"** he replied

 **"That's great. How about we** " before he finished his sentence Eddie hit him in the back of the head leaving him motionless on the floor. Of course Eddie was still in prison. Hannibal Bates had come for a visit. He dragged Barry back up to his room tied him up and changed into him. Then he saw on his phone a message from Caitlin **"Come to STAR Labs"**

Bates changed and left for the lab. After 30 minutes, he was in the cortex looking at Caitlin.

 **"What took you so long?"** she asked.

 **"Traffic was a killer"** he smirked prompting an eye roll from her. **"So ... why am I here?"**

 **"I've almost finished making a serum that will stop or changeling's cells in their tracks. He should not be able to morph into anyone else for a while after we use this on him"** she smiled while Bates approached her from behind. **" _Barry? What are you doing?"_** she asked in her head while he turned her around kissing her lips **" _Barry! Stop this right now. We`re at STAR I thought we agreed we aren't going to let them know yet about us!"_** then she realized that the person in front of her was not Barry. The kiss was dispassionate, almost cold. She took a step back and froze Bates's legs and torso **"Hello, Hannibal"** she smirked looking at him while he tried to understand what was happening **"Not very nice posing as Barry Allen and trying to kiss me. Nighty night"** she clocked him one right in the jaw with her vibrating fist leaving him motionless in the ice block she put him.

 **"What's going on here?"** Wells came back and saw a frozen Barry Allen in the middle of the cortex **"Caitlin? Are you insane? Why would you freeze Barry?"**

 **"Dr. Harrison Wells. Meet Hannibal Bates"** She sighed **"Be right back, I think Barry might be in danger, Bates has a tendency to blame stuff on his victims and after what happened to Eddie, I want to make sure Barry is OK. Are you all right to watch him for a few minutes while I look around the city?"** Caitlin asked Wells.

 **"Yea, go. I'll take a pair of metahuman cuffs from Cisco's lab in case he defrosts before you come back"** Wells motioned her away.

Caitlin changed into her Frost suit and ran at all the places she might find Barry. When she got to the West home and looked upstairs, Barry was tied up and still out on the floor in his closet. She got him out, untied him then slapped him.

 **"For real?"** Barry woke up grunting **"Why did you slap me?"**

 **"Because you were out?"** she smiled

 **"You know, smelling salts work just fine, or … something else"** he smiled. She gave him a short kiss.

 **"Bates is as the lab. He came in as you and … tried to kiss me"**

 **"And you let him ?"** Barry looked at her weirdly

 **"At the start yes, I had no reason to not think he was you, but then I remembered we're still keeping whatever we are now from the people at STAR so ... I tried to yell at him … mentally"** She explained **"When I realized he didn't even flinch at me saying what I said, because you have had more than likely, I knew he wasn't you. So … I froze him"**

 **"I hope not completely, right?"** the started to run back to STAR **"We need him on tape showing him change to be able to get Eddie off the hook "**

 **"No, not completely. However, he should be pretty much awake. I did clock him one in the chin for kissing me. Nobody gets to do that, except you that is"** she smiled toward him

 **"Nicely done, Frost. All we have to do is thaw him and hit him with the serum you made. Do we know if that will change him back ... or fix him permanently into his form?"** Barry asked really wanting to help Eddie.

 **"I guess we will find out"** Caitlin responded as they reached the Cortex. She defrosted Bates who was coming around and Barry put on his Flash suit. When he got up she injected him with the serum she had just created leaving Bates to change uncontrollably into a bunch of different persons. Barry, Caitlin, Iris, Eddie, then started to change into persons they knew from the files on the crimes that were searched in order to find him.

 **"I got all that on tape"** Wells smiled **"I made sure that the angle was random but they could see him change quite clearly Flash and Frost in the frame. This should be enough to clear Eddie"** After locking Bates in the pipeline, Caitlin and Barry went to the precinct to give the evidence to captain Singh. He and the DA were … freaked. To say the least. The police department wasn't prepared for people that could change faces as easy as they changed socks. It was a new world for everyone. Based on that evidence Barry handed the Da a file with all of Bates's victims, urging her to clear their names as well. She was more than happy to do so even thanking the Flash for leaving the file with him. Caitlin chuckled after they left

 ** _"Kind of weird to talk about yourself in the third person"_** she said

 ** _"Oh well. At least we're not the trickster"_** he replied looking at his phone who just rang.

 ** _"They are coming back from Starling and they found something. Said they'll be here by tonight and they'll meet us in the lab here at the precinct. All right then, we have a few hours to kill. What do you want to do?"_**

 ** _"I'm hungry. How about we get some pizza"_** she stopped and then continued **" _From Coast City"_** _._ His grin was visible as they both ran to get their suits and went straight for Coast City.

The trip back from Starling City took most of what they had left of the day. The group pulling back straight in the back of the CCPD building.

 **"Well this trip was more than … productive, I would say"** Bette sat on a chair while Joe and Cisco brought the corpse on a table inside the lab.

 **"We ran the DNA 4 times. This corpse is definitely Harrison Wells. I guess we have the proof we wanted and it's not in the good sense of the word"** Cisco said while looking at Caitlin and Barry that were sitting on some chairs near the whiteboard

 **"If this is Wells, then who have we been working for these past few years?"** Caitlin suddenly spoke

 **"When I talked to Dr. McGee she said that Wells became a completely different person after the accident. Maybe because he is a completely different person"** Barry said with a weak smile.

 **"Guys. Let's go back to STAR. I might have an idea on how to find Wells' secret lair"** Cisco smiled. Joe waved them off as he went down, Barry closed up the lab, picked up Bette and Caitlin picked Cisco and flashed back to STAR.

 **"What was your idea?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"When I was looking for reasons to why the particle accelerator exploded, I built a 3d model of the lab, using the sensors that we already have in the building. Before now I had no reason to look for problems or weird stuff outside the pipeline and the cortex, but now … I'm not so sure"** Cisco offered an explanation while his eyes were on a model of the labs. His sensors were scanning the interior already. The image stopped with the red outline of a room in a sector of the gantry level.

 **"What is that?"** Caitlin asked

 **"That, should not be there. Look at the outline of the place. That is where the cranes that hold up the accelerator pipes should be, there wasn't a room in any sort of plans I have seen until now"** Cisco spoke with surprise on his face. They flashed to the gantry level and Cisco took his tachyon detector with him. As they walked through the corridors the thing started to beep.

 **"I'm picking up a lot of activity down here. Tachyons, the same range and frequency as the ones we found on Dr. Wells' body"** Barry and Caitlin began to feel the walls on each side. They were smooth nothing showed any sort of button or entrance, until Barry touched a specific piece of the wall and a door opened. The four went in and a light turned on.

 **"Oh my god. Barry this is the white room from your flashes"** Caitlin managed to utter before her eyes stopped at the chamber in the wall that held the dreaded, but very familiar Reverse Flash costume. Barry moved to the console in front of the room and on the console, a hologram of a newspaper appeared.

 **"Guys?"** Barry said with a knot in his throat. The title was very clear. **"Flash and Frost Disappear. Search continues"** The headline date was April 23 2024

 **"What the hell?!"** Cisco commented as Caitlin and Bette stood there almost motionless.

 **"After a battle with the Reverse Flash, our very own speedsters, Flash and Frost disappeared into an explosion of light"**

 **"The date, it's from 2024. When I fought the Reverse Flash before he said what we would be doing this for centuries"** Barry stated.

 **"Wait, do you really think this is from the future?"** Caitlin asked with a surprised face

 **"That would mean that whoever Fake Wells is, he is from the future as well"** Bette chimed in

 **"I have to say, I am digging the brighter red suit but why would the center piece be a snowflake with the flash on top and look at Frost's outfit, her symbol is changed as well, it's a snowflake on top of a flash. Oh, god. What if this paper is the reason we change your suit, are we going to cause a temporal paradox. I'm going to shut up now. I'm getting a headache. This is so trippy"** Cisco rubbed his forehead

 **"Not as trippy as the names on the other articles on this page"** Bette pointed out. They looked at the article she was pointing at

 **"Hero bomb defusal expert finally out of recovery. Today marked the end of the recovery period for our resident bomb disposal captain and hero, Bette Ramon…"** Caitlin read. **"Ok … that's … something. Congratulations might be in order you two?"** she said visibly shaken as Cisco and Bette looked at each other in shock, then something caught her eyes and she began to read too.

 **"STAR Labs buys Palmer Tech. Talk of a merger with Wayne enterprises not excluded"** She read the title then began reading the story **"STAR Labs owners Barry and Caitlin Allen have declared that the purchase of Palmer Tech was complete this afternoon…"** she trailed off as the realization of what she just read hit her in the face with the force of a truck.

 ** _"Did I hear that right?"_** Barry asked Caitlin as she pointed to the article

 ** _"Yes you did, Mr. Allen"_** she smiled still visibly shocked by this version of the future.

 **"Mazel Tov?"** Cisco managed to say before a voice cut him off

 **"Hebrew. Ancient language of the Jewish people"** a voice explained from seemingly out of nowhere.

 **"Hello? Anyone here?"** Caitlin managed to ask after a few minutes of silence from the shock. Their surprise was even worse when a translucent face appeared between the walls seemingly floating

 **"Good evening, Dr. Allen"** the Ai replied

 **"You know who we are?"** she asked shocked

 **"Yes, of course. Dr. Caitlin Allen. Managing director and co-owner of STAR Labs, superhero alias, Frost. Barry Allen. Director and owner of Star Labs, superhero alias, Flash, Part time Director of Central City Police department CSI Division. Cisco Ramon. Executive director in charge of engineering, STAR Labs, alias Vibe. Bette Ramon. Captain of the CCPD Bomb Disposal Unit and STAR Labs security chief, alias Plastique"** The Ai said without stopping prompting everyone's jaws to fall.

 **"What are you?"** Barry asked

 **"I am Gideon. An interactive artificial consciousness"** the response came

 **"AI. Sick"** Cisco suddenly fanboyed.

 **"Do you know who Dr. Wells is? Or what is he doing here"** Caitlin asked the translucent face.

 **"I do not understand the first question. The response to the second question is that he is here to kill the Flash"** the Ai responded

 **"Why did he kill Nora Allen"** Barry asked the Ai

 **"He was angry that you escaped"**

 **"What does he want from me?"**

 **"For you to be the Flash"** the AI answered again, coldly

 **"That would make sense. That is why Wells let the particle accelerator explode. For you to become the Flash. Only he didn't count on me being there and getting zapped too"** Caitlin interjected.

 **"Guys, I just got a text alert, Wells is almost here. I don't know what he's doing here at this time of night"** Cisco said

 **"We need to make HAL over there not tell Wells we were here. Because if he finds out , that would be … bad"** Bette continued prompting a smug smile from Cisco

 **"Gideon, can you show us where your primary drive core is?"** Barry asked

 **"Of course"** The wall behind the hologram disappeared and a strange design that none of them have ever laid their eyes upon before could be seen.

 **"Hahaha. Yeah … nope. That's not going to happen"** Cisco said his eyes looking like two saucers looking at the almost alien tech

 **"Gideon, can you, I don't know, not tell Dr. Wells we were here, maybe?"** Caitlin asked the AI politely .

 **"Of course, Dr. Allen. I will accept any and all commands that come from you"** the Ai replied bluntly

 **"Why would you do that?"** She asked surprised that the holographic figure was so eager to accept the commands of a stranger.

 **"As the wife and partner of my creator you have the same access level as he does. Therefore I will follow any and all commands you give me as I follow his own"** the response came almost putting Barry into shock. He managed to get out of it and the all flashed out of the room, powering it down. They managed to get out just minutes before Harrison Wells turned the corner.

 ** _"Cait, something's fishy. I have a bad feeling that we might be watched. Let's take these two to your place and talk. I'll have Cisco take the jammer as well"_** Barry managed to articulate as they were running

 ** _"I agree. Let's get them there then we can talk"_** she replied to him and then talked aloud **"Cisco, where is the jammer you had on you when we talked at the West house?"**

 **"It's in my bag, I managed to make a smaller version which is more powerful. It will jam any sort of signal in a 50 meter radius"** Caitlin took a turn and grabbed his bag as they ran toward her apartment stopping in front of the door.

 **"Activate that and we can go inside. Well tell you why in a minute"** Barry whispered as Cisco nodded and started the device. Caitlin got out her spare key and they all went into the apartment. After letting Bette go, Barry went and picked up food for everyone. Pizza, dumplings, donuts and orange juice

 **"That was … out there"** Bette finally managed to articulate something. **"I kind of new time travel was possible since you told us about that time skip, but this far. I had no idea that was possible"**

 **"Not to mention the news. That was … something in itself. Cisco and Bette Ramon huh?"** Caitlin gave them a smirk **"Like that's going to happen"** the two looked at each other and blushed

 **"Actually, we have been on a couple of dates, out of the eye of everyone here"** Bette responded looking rather nervous.

 **"Yeah, but Barry and Caitlin Allen , owners of STAR Labs. That was seriously weird"** Cisco spoke himself with a smirk

 **"Well, I wouldn't know about owners of STAR Labs"** Caitlin started **" _Yeah we should tell them. They can keep it to themselves just like we can keep their relationship to ourselves"_** She heard a mental approval from Barry. **"But Barry and I have been dating for a while as well"** She smiled prompting Cisco to fall off the chair with a piece of pizza in his mouth and Bette making wide eyes at the blunt statement.

 **"Wait, what?"** Cisco managed to speak without choking **"When did that happen. I'm your best friend, I should be able to see these things"** he admonished himself for not picking up on that.

 **"Yeah, it's true. As for when did that happen … it's been going on for a while"** Barry spoke before getting hit with an intense headache. He knew what was coming. He fell down flat in the middle of the room, flashes going on in his head.

He saw a trap being placed by them for the Fake Wells. He saw the Gideon room full of surveillance tapes of him, Caitlin, Iris, and Joe. The man they had captured in the force field trap Cisco thought about was the shapeshifter, not Wells. He was a step ahead all of their plans.

The images continued with a wormhole forming and Wells telling him to go save his mother and a giant black hole opening in the sky above Central City, him running to stop it with Firestorm on his tail. Then the images stopped.

Caitlin was already above him with a bag of ice massaging his temples. She kissed him gently as he opened his eyes. Cisco and Bette were looking at the two acting giddy between themselves, but worry could be seen on their faces.

 **"Flashes again?"** Caitlin asked as Barry managed to stand up

 **"Yeah. At least this time my nose didn't bleed"** he managed to crack a smile even though his head was pounding

 **"You know I'll want to see them later, right?"** she smiled, he nodded.

 **"What do you mean, see them? Can you read minds now?"** Bette asked

 **"No, it's something else. Cisco can tell you, but please do so somewhere away from your houses. I think they have been bugged. Call it a hunch"** Barry managed to speak.

 **"Ok, I think we should leave to give Barry time to go home and rest"** Cisco said worried for his friend.

 **"That is a good idea, but he's not really leaving"** Caitlin smirked to the two **"It will make more sense to why when Cisco explains what we just gave him permission to tell you. Just remember, it's a secret"**

 **"Of course. You know information won't leave my mouth concerning what we do here"** Bette replied **"Come on Cisco, let's let Barry rest"** She said taking her coat and exiting with Cisco on her tail

 **"Take care man, take some aspirin or something"** the engineer added **"And, Mazel Tov"** he grinned as they closed the door behind them.


	20. Paranoia

After Cisco and Bette left, Barry and Caitlin came back to their usual routine. They did manage to eat with everyone so food wasn't an issue. They sat down on the couch

 **"That was indeed different. Barry and Caitlin Allen. Has a nice ring to it. Although I always thought you'd like to hyphenate"** He laughed when she saw turning red.

 **"Who knows, I just might. The future isn't set in stone, it is what you make of it"** She replied while looking at him

 **"Yes, indeed it is. Just don't blame me if a black hole appears to destroy our reality just because you wanted to hyphenate"** he smiled.

 **"Then I'll come up with something to close it"** she laughed at his supposed lack of faith, but shocked in her mind that he had absolutely no issue in marrying her. The discussion didn't even provoke any sort of blushes or adverse effects.

 **"Is this real life right now? Are we actually entertaining the idea of us getting married?"** Barry said with a smirk on his face.

 **"Why not? If we work, then we work and to be fair, I do think we work"** She replied sheepishly

 **"So do I. It's weird you know. I did dream about Iris for a long time, but I never even entertained the notion that I'd actually get to a point where I'd marry her. Most of the stuff I saw was simple stuff. Kissing, holding hands, going to the prom. If I look back on it with an inquisitive eye. It all looks pretty childish to me"** She kind of visibly cringed when he started to talk about Iris **"Totally different that when I'm with you. I see us doing … other things"** he grinned

 **"Mr. Allen, how dare you! What other things?"** she tried to sound offended.

 **"Making pancakes in the morning before going to work, going out for groceries, cleaning the apartment because we're slobs when we flash in, and much, much more… adult things"** Barry smirked at her provoking a blush to appear on Caitlin's face

 **"Sounds almost … domestic"** she told him smiling, in the back of her mind the images of what he was talking about were rolling like a movie.

 **"It does, doesn't it? This might sound weird, but sometimes I feel like this is my home, not at Joe's anymore"** Barry trailed off.

 **"Well you do sleep here these days more than there. It's not like you`re homeless anyway"** She quipped at him

 **"It's not really that, I think. I don't want to sound creepy, but I like this, what we have. Sleeping together, cooking together, talking about our day, kissing, cleaning the apartment or going shopping, running out like bats out of hell to save the city , or one of our friends who might be in danger. It's the simple life, but not the simple life, you know?"** Barry didn't know how to say it.

 **"You mean, having someone that cares about you waiting for you at home, don't you?"** She replied almost clearing what he wanted to say.

 **"Yeah"** And thought to himself **" _If by someone that cares about you, you mean a beautiful, gentle, smart, resourceful woman, who looks amazing in a pencil skirt and a blouse, can run faster than sound and can freeze you before you have the time to pull out half a swear from your mouth, then yea, coming home to someone you love is the best feeling ever. Wait, did I just say what I think I said?"_** he thought to himself, then smiled **" _Yes, I guess I did"_** , only to turn to Caitlin and see the shock on her face and a creeping blush that could be seeing making its way all the way up to her ears **" _Shit. You … just heard all that, didn't you?"_**

 ** _"Yes, I did"_** she returned the answer to his question and he felt himself starting to blush hard. **" _I heard every single word. I…"_ **She was fidgeting **" _had no idea you felt that way about me. Remember I did tell you that time that … nobody could think of Caitlin snow as being beautiful"_**

 ** _"Of course not. The fastest woman in the universe thinks she's a geek. Here's a newsflash for you. Geeks can be beautiful. Or even god damn sexy when wearing certain clothes"_** Barry assured her, making her blush even harder.

 ** _"Like a certain white dress"_** She smiled

 ** _"Like a certain white dress indeed or a certain Frost outfit"_** he responded and then realized what else she had heard. **" _Oh. You heard the other part too"_**

 ** _"I did and I have to say you are absolutely right. Maybe I chose my words too carefully when I made that statement. Yes, coming home to someone you love is the greatest feeling in the world. I do agree with you"_** she nodded silently

 ** _"Sorry, my mind tends to run sometimes, not thinking and not filtering what I say out loud. Bonus though, what I think is always the truth"_** Barry smiled toward his partner.

 ** _"You sure? Because I wouldn't want you to say something based on what we saw today"_** she tried giving him an out, which he didn't take.

 ** _"Barry and Caitlin Allen … that does have a nice ring to it. While marriage might or might not happen due to various reasons, because in the end we don't know what the future will bring, what I do think now, at the present time is what I have already stated and yes, I did mean it. Maybe it took me a bit longer to realize. I love you, Caitlin Snow"_** Barry managed to utter, even thinking it was a bit hard knowing she would hear every little thing. In a moment's notice she was kissing him, electricity flying between the two. Her kiss was passionate, longing, her lips were soft to the touch and brought up a heat in him he could not describe.

 ** _"I love you too, Barry Allen"_** she thought, without breaking the kiss. Time passed as they kissed each other, but then they realized the threat that was looming over them and everything slowed down to a halt. AS much as both of them wanted to continue, they were worried. The happiness of finding out that they loved one another was offset by the dark thoughts that came from the fact that their suspicions were indeed confirmed **" _I need to see what you saw. Maybe it will give us more perspective on what happened"_** she managed to say

When they looked at the clock they realized that their kissing took more than an hour, something that amazed them to no end since for them it only felt like a couple of minutes at the most. It was already late and they should be going to bed so they flashed in their pajamas and went to sleep, keeping the physical contact required for the dreamscape to activate.

 **Dreamscape – Henry Allen's log cabin**

 ** _"That is what I saw"_** Barry showed the fragmented images in his mind _**"I think Gideon might have been part of the trap. Everything that the AI told us could have been planted there by fake Wells to throw us off track. With that said, I think we need to consider the possibility that Wells is watching each and every one of us. See this picture here? That is from Eddie's bedroom"**_ He pointed to one of Eddie and Iris on a bed

 ** _"How do you know?"_** she asked with a strange look.

 ** _"I don't. But it's easy to deduce. It's not from Joe's house. I know that house by heart and Iris did move out which means this has to be Eddie's place"_** he answered.

 ** _"This is problematic. If he has indeed all of us under surveillance, then whatever we do or plan, he will always be a step ahead. We need another set of tactics, something that we can concoct somewhere else. Preferably somewhere far, far away from Central City"_** She reasoned.

 ** _"I know, but we would have to meet somewhere away from the lab and all of us. Which could raise questions coming from Wells"_** He replied back rubbing the back of his neck _**"This might prove more of a problem than we have initially thought"**_

 ** _"Agreed. There might be a way. However, we will need Oliver's help. Or Felicity's"_** Caitlin had an idea.

 ** _"What do you mean?"_** he asked

 ** _"Simple. We just have the Arrow call us for an emergency. Wells already knows we will go there to help if he needs us. I doubt he will be suspicious of that"_** she managed to explain

 ** _"True. We always stick by our friends. All right I guess we'll have to plan at the Arrow cave"_** Barry nodded. **" _I'll call him tomorrow and set up something where we can all leave as soon as possible. I'll have a run out of town and call him from another locations, just in case he's monitoring my suit. There is also the possibility that he's monitoring your suit as well. Which is a bit annoying. We can only hope that the range of the bugs he has on us is bigger than the distance to Starling City. I doubt he's using the STAR satellites, but just in case we can have Felicity check that"_**

 ** _"As far as I've noticed from the schematics that Cisco has, the sensors in our suits do not have more range than inside Central City. The power cells would not last very much if they had to go to satellite communication. So unless Cisco modified them… we should be safe in Starling"_** She replied kissing his cheek.

The next morning the couple woke up, had showers, Barry made coffee while Caitlin was getting ready and left toward work. Cisco was already working on a way to access his dreams, it was something they wanted to clear up before asking Oliver for his help.

 **"So, this will allow Cisco to see into his dream?"** Barry looked at the strange pair of glasses the engineer was working on

 **"I got the idea from an article on Lucid Dream therapy, they think it can be used to help people that suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder"** Caitlin explained **"I have been searching things that might help ever since he told us about the dreams"**

 **"Not sleeping, check. Traumatized, check. Stressed, check. Go figure, I'm the perfect guinea pig to actually test these glasses, at least I don't have PTSD"** Cisco muttered

 **"I think I have read that before, the theory is that people can enter their dreams and face their fears?"** Barry added

 **"Still working on the talking part. The treaty never explained how we could actually talk to the dreamer or get him to talk to us"** Caitlin went back to her workstation

 **"Caitlin, you sure this isn't … I don't know, fry my brain or something?"** Cisco asked with a bit of worry in his voice.

 **"The amount of electricity required to trigger lucid dreaming is ... harmless"** Barry added

 **"Probably"** she added.

 **"Who's going to be lucid dreaming?"** Wells asked appearing out of nowhere

 **"We're making something to help …. Bette"** Cisco interjected. **"She has been having trouble sleeping, bad dreams and nightmare from back when she was deployed "**

 **"Ah. And lucid dreaming might help her fight those fears. This might be a great help for patients with PTSD. Of course though, you do need to guide the patients from the outside. Direct them to specific aspects of that dream?"** Wells looked surprised that the three would go to these lengths to help Bette.

 **"Yeah, what we read about that didn't mention anything about a communications interface or a way to communicate with the dreamer. We're still working on that"** Cisco spoke

 **"When we dream, the middle brain has electrical activity and the higher brain is dormant"** Wells said heading to a console **" When you find a way to keep both parts of the brain active, or at least part of the higher brain, you will need a frequency to stimulate the language and speech centers"** He continued typing

 **"Then, whoever is dreaming could speak and describe their dreams, also understanding what is being said to them"** Caitlin replied.

 **"Exactly. I would try a frequency of 45 hertz to start"** He brought up a schematic

 **"Thank you, Dr. Wells"** She replied

 **"You guys never cease to amaze me. I had no idea you would go so far as to help a friend"** he said with amazement in his voice while letting them to their work.

 **"A very good friend"** Cisco smiled then Barry got a call. It was Eddie, he wanted to talk to him so they decided to go to Jitters. The detective was there already waiting for him.

 **"Hey Eddie, what was that thing you wanted to talk to me about?"** Barry sat down at the table where the detective was waiting for him. He didn't say anything instead he pulled a square box from his pocket containing a diamond ring. **"Oh. OH. Okay. What did she say? Wait you still have it so … either you haven't asked her yet … or she said no. I hope she didn't say no. that would suck"**

 **"I was going to propose tonight, but … this morning I talked to Joe to get his blessing and … he said no. Repeatedly. It was something that made me feel a bit …unwanted"** Eddie's smile turned

 **"Wow, that's ... weird"** Barry managed to articulate

 **"Can you talk to him? Find out why he thinks I shouldn't marry Iris? I mean if it's something that he doesn't want for his daughter or … maybe he doesn't like me as a person, which would be surprising since we seem to get along quite well at work"** the detective asked him bluntly, but his voice trailed off hinting at the disappointment the man felt.

 **"I can try, but I'm not really promising anything. You know how stubborn he can be, since you are dating his daughter"** Barry scratched his head

 **"I know me asking you to do this is a little awkward, but you know she's going to be heartbroken if she finds out Joe isn't on board"** he continued.

 **"Yea. I'm pretty sure she will accept, you don't have to worry about that, Eddie, but when she finds out that her father said now, that might lead to some pretty nasty family drama. I'll talk to Joe, but keep in mind, I cannot guarantee the outcome, but at least maybe I can get you some answers"**

 **"Thanks, you have no idea how much this means to me"** Eddie smiled

 **"Dude, you`re my friend. I know you love Iris and she loves you. Of course I'll help"** he took out his phone and dialed Joe **"Hey Joe, can you meet me at the house. I need to talk to you about something. In 30 minutes? Yea. That's fine. Thanks"** He then looked at Eddie **"Let's see what happens"** He got up from the table and flashed straight to the house waiting for Joe to arrive. He came through the door exactly as he said, 30 minutes later. Barry invited him to take a seat.

 **"So Eddie told me what happened. That you killed his marriage proposal? By saying no … repeatedly?"** Barry asked him bluntly

 **"Wasn't that supposed to be between me and him?"** the detective looked awkwardly at his foster son

 **"I don't really want to intrude, but I mean why? I know I should be the last person pleading for Eddie, but I don`t get it. Why would you say no? I know for a fact you are on good terms with the man, you two have been partners for a while and I know there is no ill will or animosity between you. This simply hit me as something that you would not do"** the speedster asked his foster father.

 **"Because, if Eddie proposes to Iris, she is going to be caught up in the moment and she is going to say yes"** Joe replied bluntly

 **"Of course she would say yes. It's obvious how much she loves the man even if sometimes she acts like a brat. What's wrong with that? I would have thought you would be happy for your daughter to marry a man that loves her as much as she loves him"** Barry looked at his foster father strangely

 **"Because one day she'll wake up and realize she married the wrong guy. But she will stay anyway because she made a promise. I don't want that kind of life for her. Or for him. She has feelings for you, Barry. She may not know about those feelings right now, but I know her. They're there"** The detective tried to explain himself

 **"SO let me guess this straight, you made Eddie feel like he was unwanted because, somewhere in the back of your mind you think Iris has feelings for me. Is that a good way to sum it up?"** The speedster asked his foster father

 **"Yes, I guess so"** the reply came **"I know you had feelings for her for a long while and I am pretty sure she has feelings for you, or else that whole debacle at Christmas would have never happened. She was acting like she had you on her mind"**

 **"Permit me to be as blunt as I can. I'm sorry Joe, but whatever feelings she has or had for me, they don't really matter now. It's a bit too late for that. I think it has been too late for quite a while now"** Barry replied coldly

 **"How can you say that? You have been in love with her for as long as I can remember"** Joe replied

 **"Yes, but "have" is the operative word here. She was always blind to those feelings. I don't need to tell you that it showed from the way I acted around her that I was in love with the woman. I didn't even need to tell her, all she needed is to pay some attention. But she didn't, it was all fun and games to her. You think I was glad to always be in the back seat? To have her come home and talk to me about boyfriends while she ignored the fact that I loved her? To go out and date someone else while I lying on a bed in a coma? Or even better, how about snogging Eddie every time she had the chance even when I was around. Being blind comes with a price and that price has already been collected"** Barry told the man that was looking at him extremely surprised at hearing what he had to say

 **"What price? What do you mean?"** Joe was further surprised at the calm demeanor Barry had in discussing his feelings for his daughter. Usually every time when discussions about how much he loved Iris and his feelings for her came around, the speedster would start to fidget and not find his words. This time however, his cool and the stern tone in his voice told him otherwise.

 **"I have moved on. I have grown tired of being the third wheel in her relationships. Being the shoulder she could cry on when her boyfriends dumped her. Comforting her with ice cream and movies when she felt like crap after dumping one herself. She never saw what she had in front of her, she always treated me as a friend. In the end, maybe she saw me more like a brother rather than a potential boyfriend. That might have irked me to no end in the past but now, being just a friend is fine by me. From now on, that is how I will be treating her, as a friend and part of my family, because she is indeed my sister, or at least that's how I see her now, but nothing more"** Barry replied.

 **"So … that time when you said you had a girlfriend … you were not kidding, were you?"** Joe looked down at the floor.

 **"Why would you think I was kidding? Because it wouldn't fit into what you thought about me? No. I wasn't kidding at all and here's the thing Joe, I don't think you have the right to cut off Eddie. He was just being polite, being the better man and asking you for permission. If he proposes, she will say yes, and then she will be heartbroken when she finds out that she accepted to marry a man you were not happy that she is with. Because right now, telling them no is refusing Iris her happiness. However "temporary" you think it is. Even though, to be fair I think that what those two have might be pretty permanent"** Barry reasoned.

 **"I'm her father. Of course I have the right to question her choices in men"** he replied prompting Barry to groan inwardly

 **"You only think you do. In reality you know very well she is her own woman and she will do whatever she wants even if it angers you. After all she is as stubborn as her father. If you`re trying to stop Eddie from marrying Iris, just because she might have feelings for me, don't. I already have someone, someone I love more than I ever loved Iris. Someone that makes me feel wanted and loved. Someone that will not treat me like a friend and will stand by me whenever I need her, offering me the same love that I offer to her"** he sighed. **"And with which I share a special bond, something that no other human has"**

 **"Who is she? Do I know her?"** Joe asked with a defeated smile on his face. He knew now that trying to keep Iris for Barry was not something that was going to happen.

 ** _"I wish you could hear this, Cait. I need to tell Joe about us to stop him from doing something really stupid"_** Barry sighed to himself.

 ** _"What is that something really stupid?"_** the answer came

 ** _"Wait, you can hear me? I'm halfway across town"_** the **speedster smiled**

 ** _"Yes, I can. So what did Joe do ? I can't really picture a person like him doing something stupid. But of course, I can always be wrong, he is still human after all"_** Caitlin answered.

 ** _"He refused to give Eddie his blessing to propose to Iris. That's why I went to Jitters and now while talking to him, he thinks that by refusing Eddie, he will stop Iris from making a mistake and marry the wrong man, because she still has feelings for me. I made it pretty clear to him now that I don't really care if Iris has feelings for me or not. Since I already have someone I love with all my heart"_** Barry gave her the cliff note version.

 ** _"Barry Allen, always the romantic aren't you? As for what you just told me I only have one word: Wow. That is … really stupid. He really wants Iris to hate him, huh? I'm guessing that night when you said you had a girlfriend, he shrugged it off as not true?"_** her answer came.

 ** _"Yes. He thought I was joking apparently. Because if I was telling the truth, then he wouldn't have cut off Eddie that way. I was surprised to actually hear such a thing from my own foster father. It's like he was living in a little world in which he ignored most of the things except the ones that he wanted to see"_** he replied

 ** _"Then maybe we should tell him. That way he can just talk to Eddie again"_** she said.

 ** _"You sure?"_**

 ** _"Well, unless you`re ashamed of being with me or ... something"_** she chuckled

 ** _"For real? You are beautiful, smart, caring, classy and always by my side. If anything I'm proud to be your boyfriend"_** He realized she was messing with him **_"But you already knew that. Hence the teasing. I'll take him outside the city. We need to talk somewhere where we aren't monitored. Meet us at mile marker 30 on the road to Starling. Don't take your suit. It might be bugged too"_**

 ** _"Ok, tell me when and I'll be there to back my nerdy boyfriend up"_** shereplied

 **"Barry?"** Joe looked at him **"I asked you something"**

 **"Come with me"** Barry flashed him out of the city as they were standing at mile marker 30 on the road to Starling **"Sorry. I think we might be watched and I couldn't afford this to get out. While you thought I was staring in space. I was actually talking to my girlfriend. Asking her if we should tell you anything, or not"** Barry stated truthfully.

 **"How could you be able to talk to your girlfriend, it was just the two of us and your phone was off"** Joe looked crooked at Barry

 **"Yeah ... about that … when I mentioned that I have a bond that no other human has with her. I wasn't kidding at all. We can talk in our heads and we can share dreams if we touch when we are asleep"** he continued.

 **"Barry, that's… a bit incredible even for you. You still dodged the question, you didn't tell me who she is"** the cop looked at him with an _"I don't believe you"_ look, which still showed Barry he needed to go through with it to convince him.

 **"You're a detective. Figure it out. To be honest, I'm really surprised you haven't figured it out yet. Or I can just call her… you know ... mentally"** Barry smiled

 **"Call her then"** Joe smiled almost daring him to do it **"I'm not really in the mood for guessing games"**

 **"Look at the detective who doesn't want to use his reasoning skills to solve a simple problem"** he smiled **_"You can come over now"_** the speedster thought and in less than 5 seconds Caitlin was standing next to him.

 **"Hello, Joe. I heard you gave Eddie the boot? Kind of surprising coming from you"** she smiled. Joe, even as used to them popping in like they did this time he was thoroughly surprised.

 **"Caitlin?"** he looked toward Barry, but the answer came from her.

 **"Yes Joe. I would answer all the questions you asked Barry, but that wouldn't be fun"** she smiled. Then it all became clear to the detective. They were always together, they helped each other and he now realized that the touches and the smiles they gave one another, most of them, which he actually noticed, were much more than what simple friends would do. The glint in Barry's eyes whenever he looked at her and the bright genuine smiles Caitlin threw his way. Nevertheless, it was clear, remembering every time he saw Barry and Caitlin together, that he had moved on and found someone else for himself. Someone who isn't blind to his feelings, but shares them. He then remembered their first Christmas together, the way they were helping each other and seemed to love to be with one another. The obvious knack they had at collaborating on almost anything they wanted to do. It was so painfully obvious, which lead the old detective to acknowledge that Barry was right. Maybe he indeed didn't want to see them, maybe because he still wanted Barry together with Iris, something that at this time seemed further and further away.

 **"So … you can really talk to one another in your heads?"** he asked

 **"Of course. How else would I know that you gave Eddie the boot. Eddie only told Barry and he came to ask you about it right after. He wasn't at STAR. Apparently it works over long distances too"** she smiled. **"Getting back to the matter at hand, I think you`re making a serious mistake cutting off Eddie like you did, I know it's not really my business, call it a ... friendly opinion"** she told the detective quite sternly

 **"So you see, Joe. You attempt to "keep" Iris for me was misguided. I have someone I love and who loves me, the proper way, my beautiful girlfriend, the one you didn't really think existed and which in fact was in front of you this whole time, Dr. Caitlin Snow"** she came to him and kissed him gently while his hand snaked around her waist **"I think you should reconsider Eddie, unless … I don't know, you want to be hated by Iris for standing in the way of her happiness, maybe pushed out of her life and even actually cause her to be alone in the end, if Eddie decided that because of your stunt she isn't worth the effort and leaves"**

 **"But that night when Barry raced out of the room and you asked him about his girlfriend?"** Joe remembered that scene.

 **"Or course I did. That was an act. Apparently good enough to be on a Broadway show, if I remember correctly"** She commented and Barry chuckled **"That's what that was. We hadn't fully come into our feelings so … we kept everything hidden until we did. Which as it happens wasn't that long ago"** she replied.

 **"I see. Then I guess I have made a mistake. Quite a big one in fact. I always thought you'd still be in love with Iris. Like you were for the last 10 or so years. That doesn't seem to be the case anymore which means, oh god"** Joe sighed **"I was a real jerk to Eddie, wasn't I?"**

 **"You kind of were, but you can fix that rather fast. All you need to do is talk to him, maybe apologize or tell him that you weren't in your right mind or something to that effect"** Barry smiled and Caitlin nodded.

 **"Which reminds me? Why are we here in the middle of nowhere?"** he asked.

 **"We have reasons to believe that Wells might have bugged our houses. Just go home, act natural, but don't discuss important things in the house. If you need to do that, call me and we can take you here. It's important that we keep as much info as needed from Wells in order to trap him"** Caitlin stated.

 **"All right. Well, what can I say, congratulations you two and ... can someone give me a ride to the city?"** Joe asked finally with a smile on his face. He realized by the looks the two were sharing that even if Iris tried, she would have nothing on Caitlin and for some reason that was totally fine with him now. Even after what had happened.

 **"For now, the fact that we're together is pretty much kept quiet, as well as never mention the telepathy thing, so I would appreciate if you do the same, at least until we manage to get rid of the Reverse Flash"** Barry asked Joe and he nodded.

 ** _"Mind taking him back? I need to make a call then I'll join you back at STAR"_** he told Caitlin

 ** _"Calling Oliver?"_** she asked and he nodded **" _All right. Don't be long"_** Caitlin winked at him, grabbed Joe and they sped to the city while Barry was left alone in the middle of the road. He picked up a phone and dialed a number. He got a burner specifically for this purpose. One that he had just bought so the call would not be made from his own cell.

 **"Hello, Oliver"**

 **"Hello, Barry. To what do I owe the pleasure?"** the voice on the other end asked.

 **"I need your help. I need a fake emergency in Starling City that would require Flash and Frost, including Cisco and Bette. Can you do that?"** The speedster spoke

 **"Sure. You need somewhere quiet to talk with your team?"** he asked

 **"Not only with my team. I need to talk to you and have Felicity contact Firestorm to meet us there as well. I have a reason to think that our houses might have been bugged so nothing we discuss in there would be safe"** Barry explained to his friend

 **"Bugged? By who?"** Oliver seemed shocked

 **"Harrison Wells. Or better said, the Reverse Flash. We finally have proof of that"** Barry explained.

 **"Understood. When do you want this "emergency" to happen?"** Oliver asked without hesitation, something that wasn't at all surprising for the speedster, he had proven himself to be a great friend and he would help in any way possible as long as he was asked to.

 **"Tomorrow would be best. There are some loose ends to tie here in Central and then we can go"** the speedster replied.

 **"OK. You will have your emergency tomorrow. And Barry?"** the archer said sternly

 **"Yes, Oliver?"**

 **"I want to hear the whole story myself, all right?"**

 **"Yeah. We'll have a war council and ill share what we know with the rest and maybe we can come up with a plan"** Barry added.

 **"Goodbye, Barry. See you tomorrow"**

 **"Later, Oliver"** Barry closed the line and destroyed the burner, running back to STAR.

That night they went back to the CCPD Lab to have Cisco try on the lucid dreaming glasses. The information the managed to get was damning to say the least for Wells. Barry knew that his lab might also be bugged, but the amount of information that they were going to release was nothing Wells didn't know about already. They had talked in advance not to mention anything that involved the Arrow. According to Cisco, the super capacitors in the trap were never discharged. Everything they saw was a hologram. Then Wells came down, introducing himself as Eobard Thawne. He told Cisco that indeed he had killed Nora Allen, but it was not his intention to do so. Remaining stuck in the past, he needed Barry's speed to open a portal back to his future. Cisco almost had a stroke when Thawne killed him in the dream, but they managed to pull him out not a second too soon for that to happen.

 **"Dreams aren't admitted as evidence anywhere but now, we have what we need. If these indeed are dreams then it proves our theory"** Caitlin managed to talk.

 **"Well, this is good enough for me. I think we're done for today. You guys ok to get home? Or should we take you"** Barry added

 **"I'm fine. Bette and I have the car outside"** Cisco told them

 **"I'm fine too"** Joe said **"I'm assuming you don't want a ride home, Barry?"**

 **"No, it's fine. I'll be staying somewhere else"** he argued

 **"All right"** she exited the room and left himself.

When everybody left Barry and Caitlin went back to her apartment going about their usual routine making sure nothing seemed unnatural. She cooked for him, with him helping as per usual, they ate and discussed about the metahuman problem, as they were talking out loud they were talking in their heads as well.

 ** _"Here we go. Tomorrow morning we should get a call from Oliver. I don't know what he has planned but he will create an emergency for us to have to go to Starling"_** Barry told her.

 ** _"Good, did you tell Oliver to have Felicity contact Firestorm?"_** she asked

 ** _"Yea. So we'll have, you, me, Oliver and Firestorm. Also Bette can help if she's willing"_** He responded

 ** _"How so?"_**

 ** _"She can corral him, if she throws enough explosives in one area, like those little balls that she carries around with her, he will have to avoid those places unless he wants to be backlashed from the blast waves"_** he reasoned

 ** _"Yea. You`re right. In addition, Firestorm can be useful to bar his way and even maybe do some damage, but the main two attackers will probably be you and me. We still cannot keep up with him, but maybe with some Icing he can be made slower"_** she replied smirking

 ** _"Oh, I see what you did there. Wonder if the paralytic fog will work on him?"_** He thought while giving her a grin

 ** _"Didn't it work on you that time when I was enraged? I never asked that. I don't seem to be affected by it which is kind of normal since I'm the one producing it"_** Caitlin replied

 ** _"Yes, you`re right. It did work on me. I did avoid it but the time my leg was stuck inside it I couldn't move it, it was literally like my muscles were frozen"_** Barry remembered the experience

 ** _"Then maybe it can work on him. I don't know what happens if he runs through the fog. We might have to test that tomorrow when we go to Oliver's"_** she said prompting a nod from Barry.

 ** _"Hopefully it's enough to at least slow him down. Although it will probably slow me down as well if not stop me. The only one who is immune to that is you. And if he slows down going through it, then you can catch him"_**

 ** _"Anyway, let's get some sleep. We will have enough time to discuss about this in the morning. Oliver is a pretty good tactician, maybe he can make a proper plan"_** Caitlin smirked at him

 ** _"I'm hurt. You think I'm not a good tactician"_** Barry pouted making Caitlin smile

 ** _"Says the man that used to run head first into burning buildings that were about to collapse"_** Caitlin snickered giving him a kiss

 ** _"Point"_** He smiled kissing her as they both went to sleep in each other's arms.

 **Central City Marina**

Eddie was really nervous. He had no idea what Barry had told Joe , but he called him and told him that he had been a jerk and he's now on board with him proposing to Iris. He had called Iris for a stroll, a perfect evening stroll for him to propose. His hand fidgeted in his coat pocket while he made sure that the ring was still there for the 50th time tonight.

 **"I am very much enjoying this stroll"** Iris smiled as she looked over the water **"We needed this stroll to help us … reconnect"** She smiled at Eddie.

 **"Actually, do you mind if we park here for a minute?"** Eddie asked and took a large breath. To anyone outside it looked like he was tired.

 **"Sure. You all right?"** she asked worried

 **"Yeah, I'm fine. Just a bit jittery you might say"**

 **"Why would you be nervous?"** Iris asked him giving him a weird look.

 **"Well, after everything that's happened, our fights and everything, I thought that it would be a good idea for us to spend some time together. But this isn't the reason why I'm nervous"** he started **"Things have been beautiful between us , I enjoy every moment I get to have with you , when you moved in you made me so happy, it had been a while since something like that happened to me. You made that happen. So now, I thought we should take it to the next level"** he took out the box and went down on one knee. **"Iris West, will you give me the honor of being my wife?"** She was stumped _,_ the man she loved was down on one knee with a ring in his hand asking for her hand in marriage. It didn't even take her two whole seconds to get out of the shock of the whole scene when she finally managed to talk

 **"Yes. I will marry you, Eddie"** she smiled as he put the ring on her finger and they kissed. This was turning to be the end of a pretty awesome day, even though it started with Joe blocking him off that morning. He needed to thank Barry, whatever he told Joe worked. The two walked hand in hand even slower this time as Iris was looking at the ring on her finger with wide eyes.


	21. Preparation

The next morning Barry and Caitlin woke up and went straight to STAR. It was a Saturday so they wouldn't have any problems leaving considering they knew Oliver will call eventually. They just hoped there wouldn't be any surprise metahuman attack during the day or days that they were supposed to be gone. This sadly was not the case.

For some reason Grodd, the gorilla that had escaped from STAR Labs was wreaking havoc in the city via a mind controlled General Eiling. He even tried to take over Barry's mind with psionic attacks, but he failed. There were two minds in Barry's head and he was not strong enough to control both. They managed to make quick work of him rescuing Joe who was captured, but in the commotion, Grodd escaped. Barry thought he had help from Wells, but he couldn't be sure. They returned to STAR to wait for the call.

Caitlin hoped that this meetup would not last longer than this weekend. They still had a city to protect even if they had to do it with the help of an evil speedster. Everyone was in the lab at the time. Cisco was fiddling with some of his tech and Bette was monitoring the early warning system for attacks. Much like any other day where nothing would have happened. Wells was in the Cortex too, reading something that Barry didn't really care about. The gang was all there. Then his cell rang. It was the call he was waiting for.

 **"Hey Barry. I know this is kind of sudden, but I need your help"** Oliver's voice sounded from the other side of the line

 **"I'm putting you on speaker, Oliver. What happened?"** Barry responded putting the phone on the main console in the cortex so that everyone could hear. Including Wells.

 **"You know that small problem I had with Digger Harkness?"**

 **"Yeah, Captain Boomerang. What's with him I thought ARGUS managed to capture him in the end after we disabled him"** Caitlin spoke

 **"They did, but last night he escaped with the help of a metahuman. Someone who I thought you had locked up in your pipeline"** Oliver explained. **"Remember Roy Bivalo?"**

 **"That's impossible, he's still here"** Barry motioned toward Cisco who opened a vid link to Bivalo's cell. He was still in there.

 **"Then this guy must be his twin or something. He can do what Bivalo could do and his metahuman powers made Harkness even more powerful. I need your help. Maybe bring Cisco along and Bette for backup. But at least you two. I can handle Harkness on his own, but with whoever that is helping him, it's hard to try to hit something when keeping your eyes closed"** you could hear distress in his voice. It was like the crisis was actually true **.**

 **"We'll be there as soon as we can"** Barry answered and everyone including Wells nodded.

 **"You know where to find me"** Oliver told them and closed the line

 **"All right. This seemed urgent, we'd rather not take the car, it would be way too slow. Barry, you take Bette, I'll take Cisco. Remember you two, don't open your eyes unless you want motion sickness"** Caitlin flashed into her suit disabling her earrings, the two in question nodded and Barry flashed into his suit as well.

 **"Felicity should have more tech there. I can create some type of filtering contact lenses that will remove red light if he tries to attack you"** Cisco told them

 **"Good luck"** Wells responded **"Send the Arrow my regards"** and then the four people were gone speeding toward Starling City and into the Arrow Cave.

 **"You've been putting on weight"** Caitlin chuckled at Cisco who gave her a frown **"Hello, Oliver, Dig. Felicity"** she greeted. Then she saw two familiar men on the other side of the space. She flashed and gave her brother a hug and shook hands with Professor Stein.

 **"Hello everyone"** Barry put Bette down and went to shake hands with Oliver and Dig, hugging Felicity

 **"So what's going on with Captain Boomerang"** Cisco asked as Bette was getting her bearings looking around the large space that she was now in.

 **"Nothing is going on with him. He's still in the ARGUS prison"** Oliver stated **"Barry? Did you not fill everyone in?"**

 **"Didn't have time, since I thought we were being watched it was better that only Caitlin and I knew about this. Cisco, Bette, there is no emergency. I just wanted to have a reason to get away from Central. As you know Wells might have bugged our homes so this is the only place we could gather and talk"** Barry explained to his teammates

 **"That makes sense. If your enemy knows what you`re doing then he will always be one step ahead"** Bette mouthed remembering the importance of accurate intelligence in the military.

 **"Hello Barry, Cisco, nice to see you"** Ronnie approached the center giving the speedster a strong handshake and Cisco a large hug.

 **"So, mind telling us why we're all gathered here? Unless you want to invite us to a wedding or something"** Oliver smirked looking knowingly at Barry and Caitlin

 **"For real?"** Barry looked at Oliver **"We need to catch the Reverse Flash and make him confess to my mother's murder. So … seeing that we can talk freely without the fear that someone actually might be listening in, maybe we can come up with a plan to capture him"**

 **"You still haven't told us much about him"** Felicity entered the conversation **"Like what we should expect, what are his weaknesses, if he has any, how fast is he actually, what else can he do if anything. You know, that sort of thing"**

 **"What you should expect is someone from the future that got stuck here and now he is trying to get Barry to get faster so that he can go home"** Caitlin bluntly stated

 **"I suspect he has the same weaknesses as any other speedster, the way he controls the speed force is the same way I do. He will probably be susceptible to cold based attacks, which is where Caitlin comes in. He is faster than me, however I don't know by how much. The last time we had a race I did manage to keep up with him, but barely"** Barry continued.

 **"As for what can he do, phasing, more than likely and vibrating his hands to kill people"** Caitlin ended.

 **"Yeah, don't ever want to go through that. Even though with the dreams I had, I actually did"** Cisco commented.

 **"A speedster's powers are based on electricity. While you can't short them out with water, maybe there is a way to make them ... disappear for a while. I was thinking something to drain the power from him and leave him slower so we could handle him"** Caitlin interjected.

 **"Yeah. One of our metahumans, Black Out, he syphoned both our powers because he needed electricity, so maybe we can do something with that"** Barry added.

 **"I'll hack into STAR labs and keep an eye on him. I always leave myself an undetectable back door in software that I install for just such an occasion"** Felicity smiled

 **"Just be careful we went into his Time Vault and he had an AI there. It introduced itself as Gideon. I don't know if you can keep up with it if it's still tied into the main system"** Bette added a warning so that Felicity would be careful

 **"Got it. Thanks"** Felicity turned to her console and started typing.

 **"Felicity, you said last time when you met something about Ray developing some sort of nanobots. Do you know if he has some blueprints anywhere or maybe an experimental batch of those bad boys?"** Cisco asked.

 **"He should. What are you thinking Cisco?"** Felicity stopped for a minute.

 **"I was thinking that maybe I can modify them on a cycle. Syphon energy from his cells, then when they are charged, release a variable pulse or vibration that will literally render his cells Inert. At least some of them"**

 **"Oh, I see where you`re going with that. If he has less energy, or hopefully none, he might slow down or not even be able to run as fast as us. At least for a couple of minutes"** Barry realized.

 **"Precisely. All we have to do is slip them in his drink, and when he tries to go all monster on us, we just activate the bots"** The engineer smiled.

 **"What happened if he starts to vibrate them out?"** Caitlin asked remembering how she got rid of the horse tranquilizer out of her system

 **"Then you try to keep him still for a couple of seconds while I put an arrow in his with more nanobots"** Oliver smirked

 **"We can help with that. He might be fast but I doubt he can phase through highly superheated plasma jets thrown at him"** Ronnie spoke

 **"Potentially he could, but since the entropy is different on plasma than it is on solid matter, he might get severely burnt or even mix up his own cells with it. I don't think he is stupid enough to do that, he did impersonate Harrison Wells for who knows how long"** Stein added.

 **"Ok, so one part we have covered, if he tries to run however what's the game plan"** Oliver commented.

 **"I can direct him with ice walls. He can pass through them but I can always put others up if he tries. I control the density of the ice so, him vibrating at air level to get through them won't work fully. If he tries that he will be slowed for a few good seconds. There is something else that we would like to try. Stand back everyone"** Caitlin went down the pedestal and created a cloud of blue mist.

 **"Ok, ready"** Barry added prompting surprised looks from everyone **"We discussed last night the only way we could without Wells finding out. Caitlin can produce a wall of paralytic fog. Remember the rage incident Oliver?"** the archer nodded **"Back then when my foot entered the fog I could not move. I want to try to pass through it and see if it stops me, slows me down or I am not affected. Cisco, can you tie in the electronics in my suit to one of the consoles here?"** he asked.

 **"Already done when you entered. The electronics were paired with our systems the last time you came here. All I have to pull all the readouts"** Felicity put them on one of the monitors. Barry started to run and went straight through, but at severe strain to his system. His speed slowed to a quarter of what he went in with.

 **"So potentially if we get him to be slower, trying to pass through the fog might stop him completely in his tracks. I do advise that you stay clear of it though. I don't know what it can do to you"** Barry added.

 **"How about we find out so we know that risks are involved, in case we need to"** Oliver chimed in. He got up from the chair and putting his hand in the cloud. **"Nope. I can't feel it. It's like it's not even there. T settles that. People like me with no powers will completely get paralyzed if they step anywhere in the fog"**

 **"Ronald, we should try as well"** Stein said and stood up. They merged and Firestorm went and put his hand in the blue fog as well. Immediately his hand stopped flaming **"Seems to be the same for me. I don't feel anything. We should stay merged in case we need to run more tests"**

 **"Ok. So the only one that doesn't lose speed and is immune is Cait. Good to know"** Barry added.

 **"I can probably bounce arrows and fireballs off me if needed, in case you guys don't have a direct shot"** She said nonchalantly prompting Felicity's jaw to fall.

 **"How can you do that? It's not like you`re arrow proof"** The blonde woman asked.

 **"Actually, she is"** Oliver pointed out **"She did that when she was enraged. My arrows could not penetrate her skin and I suspect bullets can't either, if she tries to make her armor as dense as possible. Anything hitting her would have its kinetic momentum absorbed or redirected"**

 **"That is SO COOL"** Felicity started to fanboy over Frost's powers.

 **"My fire blasts might be a bit more than you can handle, Caitlin. Their temperature is quite high"** Firestorm replied.

 **"Then we have to try that as well. Oliver, do you have a firing range that we can use without the fear of damaging the Arrow Cave?"** she asked.

 **"Follow me"** he motioned to a door on the far side.

 **"Before you do that, Barry can you run to Palmer Tech and bring us the batches of experimental nanobots so we can start working on them?"** Cisco asked.

 **"Sure. Where are they?"**

 **"In the Palmer Tech building, level 37, large office at the end of the hall, straight ahead as you exit the elevators. The passcode for the safe in the office is 4311872"** Felicity finished and Barry was back in 15 seconds with 4 canisters of clear liquid in his arms **"Thank you"**

Firestorm, Arrow, Frost, Flash and Plastique went into the training area. I was obvious it was more than a shooting range for bows. The walls had been reinforced and there were fire extinguishers and safety features all over. Barry knew this area well, it was where the flash and the archer had their first face to face. A little friendly duel, which up to this day nobody knew how it ended.

 **"Ok, Cait. You stand in the middle try to redirect the blasts that are coming toward you to someone else, except the fireballs, those I can't stop. Oliver, Firestorm, Bette throw stuff at her. I'll standby to catch any rogue arrows that might hit anyone, so don't worry about those, but if you see any rogue fireballs coming at you … duck"** He spoke and gave the others a grin

 **"Barry, I don't know if it's a good idea to throw explosives at her"** Bette spoke taking off the power suppression cuffs.

 **"Not large ones, no. that is why when I went to Palmer Tech I bought you this bag of beads. Even with the force you put into them, the explosions shouldn't be dangerous. When it's for real though, only throw them her way if absolutely necessary. I don't want her head blown off"** Barry pulled one of his smiles **"Everyone ready?"** Caitlin iced up, Oliver drew his bow, Firestorm lit up **"Then let the fun begin. Remember, don't worry. I'll protect you from any stray arrows"**

A storm of arrows, fireballs and exploding beads started to fly across the room. The Arrow had aimed well, but the ice that covered Frost was indeed impenetrable, however he noticed that now she was using her speed to move out of the way of the arrows instead of taking them head on, gently changing their trajectory to the other two combatants, not making them lose momentum and fall to the floor like she did in the other scenario.

Firestorm was going all out. He let out a series of fireballs. Two of them hit her but disappeared when hit the ice skin, the other three she managed to deflect with her hands which were covered by ice toward the walls between them so the others would not be hurt. The flames were hot, but barely managed to melt the upper layer of her frost gloves.

Plastique's beads did indeed hit her and a few exploded right near her leg. The ice didn't seem to be phased by those small explosions, as she redirected some of the beads away from the other people. Flash was zipping around catching arrows, which Frost expertly aimed at everyone using her speed to redirect them in whichever way possible.

Arrow was seeing the way the two speedsters worked with each other. Whichever way Frost managed to redirect his arrows, they weren't even half the way to their target before Barry managed to catch them. It was like they knew where she was pointing them and the Flash's eyes were always on her movements, almost like predicting where the arrows would go. The amount of coordination that would take wasn't lost on him. The Flash had to know his partner's way of moving down to the letter.

They continued this mock sparring for another hour or so practicing combo shots to hit moving targets and stationary ones, before Oliver ran out of arrows to shoot, so they stopped and came back to the center area with all the tech. The archer had noted that for something that merely took an hour, Caitlin had become very proficient in redirection with the least amount of momentum loss, sometimes even using slingshot maneuvers to increase the punching power of his arrows. Suffice it to say that for Oliver that saw quite a lot, this actually managed to impress him.

 **"That was quite a show"** Felicity whistled at them **"I had no idea you two work so well together"**.

 **"I noticed that too. The way Barry caught the arrows before they were even halfway to their targets was pretty damn cool. Almost like you were reading her mind"** Oliver stated with a really impressed tone

 **"He was. I was telling him to who I was redirecting the arrows to"** Caitlin smiled **"I didn't want anyone getting hurt but I did want to get the hang of it"** Bette and Cisco were visibly smirking.

 **"Barry? Care to ... share with the class?"** Oliver asked.

 **"After the lightning struck, we found that there were … side effects. For one, we could enter a dream scape as long as we were near each other and touching while we slept"** Barry retorted having Oliver and Diggle look at him like he was joking.

 **"So I'm guessing you also had to test that"** Felicity snickered.

 **"Yeah. While she was in a coma and I was watching over her. Not the way you think, Felicity"** Barry answered.

 **"Also, another interesting effect is that we can talk. I can hear his thoughts he can hear mine. Which is how I was telling him where I would redirect the arrows"** Caitlin told them, prompting another wave of fallen jaws from Team Arrow.

 **"That is … seriously cool"** Diggle managed to mutter after a few minutes of silence.

 **"Yeah"** Cisco laughed **"It's like they are stuck in a permanent Vulcan mind meld"**

 **"It certainly explains a few things. The way you two moved it was as if Barry was predicting your moves. It was way too fluid unless you told him exactly where they were going"** Arrow commented.

 **"Actually, I don't really need her to tell me. I can tell by the way she moved where the arrows might have gone. Since we're speedsters the world around slows down considerably when we use our powers. With the fact that our minds can cope with that immense speed, making a few simple trajectory calculations based on her body and the trajectory of the arrows after they leave her hands is not something difficult to do. Sure I wouldn't be so fast in catching them halfway, but I know her movements and I am quite good at math"** Barry smiled to which Felicity smirked.

 **"You`re used to watching her move huh?"** the two started to blush but Cisco saved them from the embarrassment.

 **"Ok, I managed to reprogram Ray's nanobots. At least one batch. They will start to drain energy from the cells around them and start to vibrate. The vibrations should be enough to stop the surrounding cells to power up again. The effect should last about 1 minute per charge. If Wells can phase them out of his system. If he can't one dose should be enough, because the moment the bots stop and the cells start to power up again, they will restart the drain cycle"** the engineer told them.

 **"Did you take into account the case that the cells produce too much energy?"** Barry asked, prompting Cisco to smile.

 **"Yes, when they reach 100 percent charge they will start to vibrate and drain at the same time. The cells will power the bots until they are drained after which they will go on internal power which lasts that 1 minute"** Cisco answered.

 **"Well, we have the way to slow him down now. Frost can paralyze him, Firestorm can slow him down and corral him and Bette can deny him large avenues of escape or approach using her explosives. What's the endgame?"** Oliver answered.

 **"The endgame is capture. I want to lock him up in a cell, permanently dosed on those nanobots, until he confesses to my mother's murder"** Barry answered, getting a glare from Oliver. The archer knew that there could always be a different outcome, but said nothing. Barry however caught his glare and responded **"Don't look at me like I'm naive, Oliver, because I am not, which leads to the other thing I want to make clear. If he threatens to kill anyone who participates or is seconds away from doing so. Ollie, put arrows through his heart or head, I don't care. You kill him on the spot. As much as I want a confession for my mother's murder and to get my dad out of prison, that is not worth either of your lives. Ok?"** Barry said with a stern conviction in his eyes, Oliver nodded. Caitlin looked surprised at him, she had never seen him with that sort of cold, dark glare before.

 ** _"Are you sure you want Oliver to kill him?"_** she asked waiting for an answer

 ** _"Yes. A confession isn't worth any of the lives of the people that are here. These are our friends. I'm not Wells. I don't use people for my own devices. They help and they deserve to know everything. Missing information can lead to them being dead, which is something I do not want"_** he answered

 ** _"But …"_** she tried to backtrack

 ** _"Cait, no buts. I know Oliver will kill if necessary. However, if he had you and he was about to kill you, I would split his skull open without thinking about it. Understand?"_** Barry's eyes were telling the truth.

 ** _"I understand. I did not know you had that resolve in you"_** she commented with a light bit of admiration in her eyes.

 ** _"I don't. Not now anyway and probably will never permanently have it. I am not a killer and I do not enjoy it. Nevertheless, when it comes to people I love, I will do anything necessary to protect them and I do mean anything, even shove a vibrating hand through his face. Just to make myself understood, at the moment, you are on the top of that list, Cait"_** he replied bluntly making her blush

 **"Do they do that a lot?"** Felicity asked Cisco

 **"What? You mean like ... not say anything for a few minutes then realize there are other people in the room and they weren't talking aloud? Yep. It's becoming a habit. I see it as quite rude as well, but nothing we can do about it"** Cisco laughed and his laugh attracted their attention.

 **"Yeah, sorry about that. The discussion was not related to the plan we were making"** Barry explained as Oliver scoffed.

 **"You said he might vibrate to get his nanobots out of his system. Is there any way to keep him from doing that?"** Bette asked bringing up a good point

 **"The only way we could do that is if we have some sort of sonic device that can produce a high enough pitch to disrupt his own vibrations. Getting the right amplitude would be really beneficial for us because if he tries to vibrate and he gets hit with that, it will hurt him. Badly"** Caitlin said and at that moment the elevator door opens and a familiar face entered the Arrow Cave.

 **"Wow, what's with the superhero meetup guys. Did I miss anything?"** Laurel Lance smiled at the group while Cisco had a grin on his face.

 **"I think we just have our vibration disruptor"**

 **"Say what now?"** Laurel looked weird at the people assembled

 **"You continue what you were doing. I'll put Canary here up to speed"** Oliver spoke as he took her aside and began telling her about what happened and their plans.

 **"Do we even know what sort of frequency he needs to vibrate at so he gets the bots out of his body?"** Felicity asked.

 **"Well, no … but we can shoot Barry with a tranquilizer arrow and let him get it out of his system and we can measure that"** Caitlin smirked

 **"Hey! Why me. You did it the first time. They should shoot you"** He joked

 **"You really want Oliver to shoot me with an arrow?"** the woman made a pouty face at her boyfriend

 **"No"** he looked down defeated **"Fine, I'll do it "**

 **"So. Who do I get to shoot with an arrow?"** Oliver came back with Laurel by his side. Barry pointed at himself.

 **"I'm the guinea pig. Fire away. Cisco you ready with the sensors and the measurements?"**

 **"Everything's ready"** the engineer asked. To Barry's surprise Oliver didn't cock an arrow to shoot him. He got one out of his quiver and simply stabbed him in the leg with it

 **"Ow"** Barry winced as he felt the tranquilizer entering his body. Oliver stepped back while he began to vibrate, a green mist going out of his silhouette before he became a clear figure again **"That was, interesting"** he quipped

 **"Got it. Assuming his rhythm is the same I can adjust Canary's sonic collar to interfere with his frequency. That was if he tries to vibrate to get the bots out, when she hits him with a blast wave from the Canary Cry he will more than likely be dazed. Depending if the frequency is good to be at resonance he might even get damaged, quite seriously. However, if you are anywhere in the area of fire and you do that, you will be damaged too. So be mindful of that. Both of you"** Cisco explained and warned the two speedsters

 **"So, you need me to be there?"** Laurel spoke herself **"Also, you can speak in your heads? What is this? The Twilight Zone?"**

 **"Yeah we do. And Seriously? You`re sitting in a room with a guy that can run at supersonic speeds, a woman that can literally freeze anything she touches and another woman that can turn a kid's toy into a WMD. I think we are way beyond Twilight Zone here"** Barry smirked and she nodded smiling.

 **"And yes. We can talk in our heads"** Caitlin nodded.

 **"Check this recording of them fighting just a little while back and tell me what you see"** Oliver Pointed toward the footage on the screen and Laurel began watching it. She noticed the way the two speedsters worked just like Oliver had before. Her mind didn't work the same as the archer's when it came to strategy, but she saw the speed of the reaction time. It was something she had not seen before, of course they were speedsters, which mean their velocity was their greatest asset. However, the fact that they could communicate through their thoughts was nothing to be left out. If anything that ability gave them the fluidity of movement and the minimal response times that she was seeing.

 **"So, how do we do this? We do have to all be there for this to work"** Diggle commented.

 **"It wouldn't be odd at all if Harkness escaped and skipped town … right?"** Bette asked.

 **"It wouldn't be impossible, but with all the people here, it would indeed be strange if the two criminals actually managed to escape"** Caitlin asked with a raised eyebrow

 **"Wells, or whoever he is, is still a pretty smart guy. In the end even if he figures out something is wrong, it's not like it matters. We do have to not give up our hand immediately thought" _Barry continued_**

 **"Why? Do you have something in mind?"** Oliver looked at the speedster.

 **"Since he might have surveillance on us, he might know by now that we figured out he isn't who he says he is. But I don't think he'd refuse a cup of coffee"** Barry smiled

 **"You want to dose his coffee with nanites?"** Cisco looked surprised at this

 **"Sure, why not. If he doesn't drink it, then we keep to the original plan, but if he does, it could give us an edge"** Barry responded

 **"Look at you. Thinking like a strategist. Didn't think that was possible"** Oliver grinned at him. **"I was about to suggest the same thing"**

 **"Quite surprising indeed"** Caitlin smirked **"Coming from a man that used to run head first into a burning building"** Barry frowned then said with a grin

 **"I'm never going to hear the end of that, will I?"** the speedster pouted at her.

 **"No, you won't"** she smiled.

 **"Well I'm in, but you have to remember, the Canary Cry doesn't have extreme range, so someone will have to either get me in pretty close or I will have to be there with you"** Laurel managed to add to the discussion

 **"It will be situational. You will be standing by to help or even to stop him from moving your way. But if he starts to vibrate, then Barry or Caitlin will come get you** " Oliver explained the way that she should use her scream.

 **"Yeah, beside Ollie, who's already a glutton for punishment, most of you don't stand a chance against the evil speedster and like I have said before, I want us to walk away with our lives from this one"** Barry spoke with a hard voice, making sure he made his point across. He called on his friends to help and he didn't want any of them hurt.

 **"I already have experience against … evil, ice throwing, icicle wielding, raged out speedsters, so I should be fine… I think"** Oliver smirked looking at Caitlin.

 **"There is something else I might be able to do. I'm pretty sure the icicle attack and the freezing rain are too slow to catch him, unless I make that over a wide area** " Caitlin replied

 **"By making that over a large area you run the risk of hurting our own people. I can dodge them, but most of the people here can't"** Barry cut in

 **"They will probably melt when they get anywhere near me"** Firestorm added.

 **"I was thinking … how about I just freeze the ground. I'm assuming he can't really maneuver over ice"** Frost pointed **"That is if his costume is about the same as ours. While the shoes are anti-skid, last time I tried to run over ice it took increased control and energy to keep myself from actually slipping or skidding. The continual drain could be something that might help us get rid of his powers faster"**

 **"I guess we'll find out. Testing that on your suits would be pointless. He might have some future tech that prevents him from having those kinds of issues"** Bette commented.

 **"Well, is there anything else to add? Because if not, we should totally go out and have some food"** Felicity added looking at her stomach who was grumbling.

 **"Want to go out somewhere? Or we can just stay here and eat and talk. We can go and get food for everyone"** Caitlin told Felicity

 **"What do you guys think?"** Barry asked

 **"I'm fine with whatever"** that was Cisco with his head in the consoles

 **"Going out would be nice, kind of like the calm before the storm"** Bette chimed in

 **"Not really in the mood"** Oliver grumbled

 **"We're fine sitting here and eating"** Firestorm commented they separated into the two component parts. Professor Stein was pretty eager to get his hands on food for some reason, also he was fascinated by the way the two could communicate without speaking. Their brainwaves were in sync as well but they could never do that.

 **"I have to go home actually. Need to talk to Lyla about covering for us while we're gone"** Diggle responded headed toward the door. **"I'll see you guys in the morning"**

 **"I have some depositions to go through until tomorrow. An ADA's work is never done"** Laurel turned to leave herself **"I'll be here in the morning though, so we can go take care of your … problem"**

 **"Don't really want to go out myself to be perfectly honest, just thought to include that in the options in case someone else would. When you eat like a pig to keep your energy up, people start to look at you with strange and awkward smiles when you`re at your third extra-large pizza"** Caitlin muttered

 **"I second what Cait said. We usually go out somewhere where at least we have a bit of privacy when we chug down 5 pizza each"** Barry admitted.

 **"So you two finally got around to dating, huh?"** Oliver suddenly said prompting a smile from Cisco and Bette. **"What? You think you`re actually fooling anyone?"** a sly smile appeared on his face.

 **"Felicity…"** Barry rolled his eyes at his blonde friend

 **"What are you looking at me like that for? I didn't tell him anything. You know how perceptive he is"** She waved her hands in her defense.

 **"No, because you keep it so well hidden I would have to be a master detective to notice"** Oliver scoffed. **"You literally are two of the worst people at hiding how much you like each other. Witness to that is the fact that I asked you the first time I saw you together "Do you like her ", did I not, Barry?"**

 **"Yeah, you did"** the Flash nodded.

 **"The same thing Felicity asked me the first time she came back to STAR and we were both awake"** Caitlin smirked **"Was it that obvious?"**

 **"Yeah, I was. You two were so oblivious to each other. Don't think I didn't see you breaking your leg when I kissed Barry on the cheek either. Losing focus my ass, you were keeping an eye on us all that time and when that happened, well you know. Glad to see that's not the case anymore"** Felicity smiled as Barry took Caitlin's hand missing her touch as the hours passed.

 **"I think Congratulations are in order then"** Professor Stein smiled **"Round of beers all around on me "**

 **"So, food?"** Caitlin and Barry were gone and back in less than a minute with pizzas and a beers.

 **"20 Pizzas? Isn't that a bit … excessive?"** Oliver came back changed in his normal clothes.

 **"4 for you and 16 for us"** Caitlin explained **"The run around we did earlier left us hungry. 500 miles is not a short trip especially with passengers"** Oliver cringed. He had never seen how much food the speedsters needed, but 8 extra-large pizzas seemed a bit much. His opinion however soon changed seeing the food literally disappearing from in front of him while the other ate as well.

 **"I didn't know how much this would take so I booked rooms for you at the hotel in town. I didn't know what your preference was so … besides Caitlin and Barry, for which I booked one room, for obvious reasons, I booked singles all around"** Felicity gave the couple a smirk.

 **"I kind of expected that from you, Felicity"** Barry said rolling his eyes. However, she saw he was grateful for thinking ahead. Everyone finished eating and grabbed a beer **"Well, let's hope this plan works"**

 **"It has no reason to fail. Even if it does, you know well figure something out"** Bette commented.

 **"Yeah. We're all here, so we will manage to think of something"** Stein said with half his beer already gone.

 **"Too bad it took a speedster supervillain to bring us together like this to cooperate"** Caitlin muttered **"Maybe we should do this more often"**

 **"Well, you know Oliver isn't good at working with other people"** Felicity smiled and the archer gave her an icy glare **"What? It's true"**

 **"Well, I would like to thank you for the help in advance anyway and you ever need us, you know where to find us"** Barry downed half his beer in one swig.

 **"To friends"** Cisco raised his beer and they all raised their respective beers as well

 **"To friends"** a combined chorus of voices could be heard coming from the depths of the Arrow Cave.

Barry and Caitlin left for the hotel and since they didn't really bring any civilian clothes they had to get at least some stuff to sleep in which they did rather fast. After that they flashed to the room and they changed into their sleeping attire going out to the balcony each with a glass of wine, looking over the city as they discussed in their head.

 ** _"I really hope this works out as we planned it"_** Barry looked at her with a hopeful look but she sensed from afar that he was worried.

 ** _"If it doesn't, then we adapt and we make it work. That is the beauty with us working together, I think we can manage to take on one crazy speedster. I know you`re worried, Barry. So am I, but you could say that everyone is the same. We will manage to make this work. You'll see"_** She smiled taking his hand in hers and giving him a kiss on the cheek.

 ** _"Thanks, Cait. I needed that. I want us to catch him so I can free my father, but I have a feeling that won't be the case. Even if that isn't what will happen, I will at least have a little bit of peace when I see him dead on the ground. The man that destroyed my life and the life of my father, while you know I don't condone killing, I would rather see him dead then escape again. I hope that makes sense"_** Barry replied holding her tightly to him as they watched the city at night.

 ** _"I do. Now let's get some sleep. We will need to have our energy in the morning"_** She smiled and dragged him to bed. He didn't protest and they fell asleep in each other's arms quite soon after. The run and the training took a lot out of them and they were tired.


	22. Opposite

The speedster couple woke up the following morning quite early. They woke up being a fuzzy term because they could sleep very little, both of them twisted and turned all night, they were on edge because of what was to go on during the day. They did manage however to spend some quiet time in their dreamscape which offered them the much needed rest they needed. After they showered and changed into their outfits they decided to go for a run around the city, also grabbing some donuts and food for the others. They would need to keep their energy up. They were going to go back to Central City with Felicity and Oliver in their car. Cisco and Bette would follow in Diggle van with the rest of the group. Laurel said she would be coming by car as well, and whoever didn't want to spend 5 hours cooped up in the van was welcomed to go with her.

The two found it odd that they didn't bring any sort of civilian clothes with them, since they had to buy sleeping attire, but they didn't really care if someone would had seen them. Although seeing Flash, Frost and the Arrow in the same car driven by a blonde woman would give anyone a shock, they didn't care. They agreed that they wouldn't use their speed recklessly risking of running out of energy in the middle of the fight, but they did need to bring the team together fast, so for the time being that was the only thing that they would speed for. Before everyone left the night before all the cars had been already brought in and whoever got up and was ready to be picked up would text Barry and one of them would Flash them to the Arrow cave. He and Caitlin had decided to take turns so neither one of them would be especially taxed.

Their restlessness was shared apparently. Texts started coming way before it was merely 7 in the morning. After 30 minutes everyone was in the lair. Barry made a run and brought them all coffees after picking up Laurel which apparently took a bit longer to get ready that the others. After the two finished eating their breakfast which would probably be used to feed 30 African families, they all got their supplies and got into their respective cars starting the 3 hour drive to Central City.

 **STAR Labs – Gideon Room**

Harrison Wells was analyzing the surveillance data he had collected over the years on Barry Allen and his friends all the way to their discussion in the Cortex about Cisco's dreams. After seeing the footage they he realized that the trio was lying about Bette's sleep issues. Considering she was a veteran the young lady seemed to pretty mentally sane, even though she could blow things up by touching them. He concluded that something was amiss, but he could not quite put his finger on it. Nothing had happened out of the ordinary in the city but after assessing Barry's top speed in one of his trials he decided that it was time to put his plan into action.

 **"Gideon, how much time would require the particle accelerator to charge in order to create a wormhole?"** Wells asked the Ai

 **"With the power cell in this chamber? What type of wormhole do you intend to create Dr. Wells?"**

 **"A rip in the time space continuum that will bring us back to our time"** he answered

 **"2 hours 43 minutes"** the precise answer came **"We can accumulate the energy to speed the matter in the accelerator, but you would require help from Flash and Frost to open a stable wormhole"**

 **"I don't think I'll be getting that help, Gideon. Something isn't right about all of this"** Wells answered looking over the footage again.

 **"Without their help, the wormhole would have no angular momentum. It will more than likely buckle under its own magnetic field, or expand in such a way that it could transform into a singularity"** the Ai clarified.

 **"Chances of the wormhole transforming into a singularity and crushing the earth?"**

 **"2.91 percent"** the Ai quickly calculated.

 **"And chances it will collapse after we go through it?"**

 **"With the added loss of power from our trip. 93.2 percent"**

 **"Then I shall have to take that chance. Something tells me that I won't be getting any sort of help from our speedsters"** Wells spoke. He knew that the odds were in his favor, the chance of the wormhole actually becoming a singularity were small and if that would to happen that meant upon arrival he would cease to exist. His ancestor would have died in the wormhole incident, which means he would disappear into nothing as soon as he left the protection of the speed force. He had nothing to lose at this point, with all the years and the planning to make it a safe journey home, the irony that he created not one, but two speedsters for this exact purpose was lost on him. The power cell had been ready for almost a year now, but he did not want to take any chances with the future. At this point he had no other choice.

He went back down to the accelerator ring and plugged the small silver power cell that he managed to build with the aid of Gideon, with components from this time in a power regulator. The accelerator started humming as it charged, Wells coming back to the time vault.

Our collection of heroes and misfits were at the edges of Central City when Cisco received a text alert from one of his monitoring programs in the Cortex.

 **"Well … shit. Houston, we have a problem"** He said looking at the message he had just received. **"Wells brought the accelerator back online. He's using something to charge it"** they had just arrived at Ferris Airfield. The site where almost a year ago they had their first speed test. They thought of good open area with no civilians around would be a good point for an all-out fight and this was the first place that came to mind.

 **"How could he bring that piece of junk online again. I thought it was badly damaged the first time it exploded and turned half the city into insane metahumans"** Felicity said with a bit of fear in her voice.

 **"He must have been repairing it all this time while he told us he was "busy" with his projects. Are you still tied into the cameras at the lab?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"Yes. Let me check"** Cisco was typing at one console while Felicity was doing the same thing at another. He had given her the access codes for the lab so she wouldn't bother to hack in for now **"He is nowhere in the lab and there is one place where we don't have cameras"**

 **"The time vault"** Barry interjected **"How much time until the accelerator is fully charged?"**

 **"Around an hour and a half. I got the text alert late. Gideon must have delayed the activation of all my monitoring subroutines"**

 **"I guess we can't beat around the bush anymore, can we? Cisco, put one of those nanite canisters in an injector. The moment Wells comes out of that room, tell me"** Barry ordered with a voice that left everyone almost unable to move. It was authoritative and final. Oliver was shocked that the mild mannered scientist that he had met a while back had become nothing short of a leader. Nobody managed to say anything, except for his girlfriend.

 **"What are you going to do?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"The moment he is out of that room I'm going to go over there and stick him with a needle. Surprise should be on my side for now. Then taunt him a bit and hopefully get him to follow me over here"** he responded making her raise an eyebrow

 **"You don't want me to come with you?"** she asked.

 **"You need your energy for the ice attacks. Even though we have eaten enough those will be the main things that you need to do. Well except avoid him and get around, but I would rather you not use your speed unless you absolutely need to"** he explained and she nodded. The less speed she used the more energy she would have to attack the Reverse Flash with. **"You`re our main weapon here. The frost can slow him down and that will give me the upper hand to attack him. The person that can freeze a speedster in his tracks, in love with a speedster and helping him against an evil speedster. We can safely say that our lives are anything but normal"**

 **"Guys, Wells is out of the time vault. He is heading towards the Cortex"** Felicity announced.

 **"Barry here's the injector with the nanites. Remember they aren't active so he will be as fast if not faster than you with the added tachyon burst. They will activate when you get in 500 meters of this spot. I've already set different frequencies for the different batches so we can activate them individually. The others are being put into Oliver's arrows as we speak"** Cisco pointed toward Felicity and Oliver that were modifying his injection arrows to carry the nanite payload.

Caitlin stepped up to Barry and with all her courage that she had gathered for the upcoming battle pulled him into a hug and kissed him. Her hands were holding him tight as his hands went around her waist. The kiss was short, but the passion they both put into it was obvious to everyone there to the degree that it prompted a few whistles from the people that were present. Even the quiet and fussy professor Stein gave one and Ronnie had a large smile on his face seeing his sister so happy and so much in love with the man she wanted.

 **"Be careful and come back to me. No unnecessary risks, all right? I love you"** she didn't even try to say it so that the others couldn't hear, she didn't care.

 **"I will, I love you too, Cait"** He put his mask on and looked at the others who were done with the preparations. Bette had removed her cuffs and had pellets at the ready that she could transform into bombs. They were differently sized depending on what she wanted to do with them. Ronnie and Professor Stein merged as Firestorm appeared in his usual flashy fashion standing by to rain fire on the Reverse Flash's parade. Canary had her sonic collar at the ready and the Arrow with full gear on and the nanite arrows prepared was eyeing the terrain looking for potential speed traps or irregularities that he could point out to Felicity and Cisco. His girlfriend beside him put her mask on releasing the suppressors on her earrings. As she walked toward the group the usual fog appeared and through it Frost took her place near the strange band of heroes and vigilantes he had gathered. Her eyes were flashing lightning, which Barry found extremely beautiful. **"Here we go"** he gave a nod to the others which returned it. He took off toward STAR labs with his heart pounding in his chest.

He sped into the Cortex, injecting Wells as he came to a stop a few seconds later. He looked at Barry with a strange face. The surprise had worked. He had managed to get the first batch of nanites in his system.

 **"What the hell, Barry"** he yelled. **"At least warn me before giving me an injection"**

Barry couldn't help but remember the good times that he had with this fake Wells. The instructions he gave him, the way his ideas always helped to take down metahumans, or the ideas the gave them to save the ones that needed saving, like Ronnie, but the memory of his mother's murder brought an anger in him that was visible. His eyes were now full of lightning flashes.

 **"I don't think that shot would hurt you anyway, Eobard. Are you by any chance afraid of needles?"** Barry hissed through his lips

 **"What? Who's Eobard? Mr. Allen, did you lose your mind?"** Wells tried to skirt the subject but that didn't work with Barry, which managed to quell his anger and refocus, his face forming a dark grin.

 **"Ok since Eobard doesn't seem to ring a bell should I call you the Reverse Flash? Maybe that will spark something"** Barry smirked. Wells knew the jig was up. He didn't feel anything different, but he was still thinking about what Barry put into him. He clapped his hands while he stood up from the chair with a grin on his face.

 **"Was I so obvious? I didn't think you`d ever figure out who I am"** He smiled toward the Flash with his usual snarky tone.

 **"You made mistakes. Which is surprising for someone that supposedly comes from the future and which should know what would happen in advance"** Barry commented.

 **"I didn't make mistakes, which begs the question of how you managed to figure everything out. That is perfectly fine and it doesn't really matter now. The accelerator is running and even without your help I will still be going home. I was going to ask for it, but I don't think you would be willing"** Reverse Flash smiled.

 **"You would be right. Why would I help the man that murdered my mother go home. You should rot in a cell in the pipeline for what you`ve done. How about we finally see who's faster?"** Barry grinned as he sped out of the Cortex heading straight to the airfield. The fake Harrison Wells was right behind him already changed into his Reverse Flash outfit.

The moment they reached the airfield a wave of ice froze the ground they were on. The Flash stepped aside, but his enemy got caught in it and stumbled on the ground before regaining his footing.

 **"I see you brought friends along. I am going to enjoy killing every last one of them"** Eobard spoke as he sped away straight toward Frost who was at the end of the runway. Before reaching her however a blaze of fire stopped him in his tracks. The fire wall was put up by Firestorm that was already up on the air and throwing fireballs and jets of superheated plasma at him. As slow as they were he could avoid them with ease or so he thought. He felt himself getting slower and realized something was draining him. Before any of them could react he started to vibrate and got the nanites out of his system. Nevertheless, he sat in one place for too long. A bunch of marbles was rolling toward him. Bette managed to throw them just in time for the explosion to set off a blast wave that hit the Reverse Flash as he tried to speed away from them. The backlash threw him with his face flat on the iced surface that was the runway. He was surprised how much damage the nanites managed to do. He didn't have the speed to outrun an explosive blast anymore, but he was fast enough to take care of the Flash and his band of misfits.

 **"Nice trick, Flash"** he grinned as he ran toward Barry at full speed hitting him in the chin dazing him for a moment. He threw a series of punches but before he managed to take a final hit an icicle went straight through his palm. Frost had been taken in the air by Firestorm and was now throwing a hail of icicles at him. Firestorm did this without thinking, but her ice shield was holding against the immense heat that he was giving off. He let her on the ground and flew straight at him shooting fire jets out of his hands which missed him by a hair. When he turned, the Flash was gone.

He took off toward Bette only to be met by an ice wall. **"You know any kind of wall cannot stop me, why do you even bother trying"** he yelled while he tried to phase through the wall, only to stop on the other side panting feeling severely slowed.

 **"Extreme high density almost absolute zero Ice walls, asshole"** Oliver grumbled at him just before clocking him one and letting an arrow fly that hit him in the chest. The Reverse Flash started to run again before he felt the effects of the nanobots. He stopped trying to vibrate to get rid of them

 **"Canary, now!"** Frost yelled running and taking the disoriented hero and dropping her in range to use her weapon. The sound wave was right on point. As the reverse Flash started to vibrate the oscillating amplitude of the Canary Cry took him out of it. He still managed to get some out of his system, but the sonic shock made him lose control of the vibrations which ripped part of his suit and left him with a superficial gash in his shoulder as the particles who he had lost control over phased into nothingness.

Eobard was pissed. He hadn't thought that they would manage to do that much damage to him. With renewed stamina, he managed to get to Bette which he punched leaving unconscious on the ground. Going back toward the Flash he didn't see that Frost was near her in a few seconds and started producing blue fog. He punched him again, the Flash returning the favor with a few placed blows to his torso before a jet of ice impacted him. The cold was not something he liked and as he moved out of the freeze beams he came straight face to face with Firestorm's flames, which managed to singe parts of his suit. Running the other way he was disoriented by the Canary once again. She had made a barrier of sound that he ran straight into not being aware of the way the people were positioned around the place. Eobard managed to stumble out of the wall of sound visibly slowed. Before he could regain his composure the Arrow managed to get another shot in, this time in his thigh. He saw the Canary was out of breath and started vibrating managing to get some of the nanites out of his system.

Staying in one place had its price because Laurel let out another cry immediately after stopping him from removing all the nanites and creating another gash on his leg. The molecules simply dissipated, the harmonics of the sound disturbing his own vibrations. Running toward the person that did him the most damage he was greeted by another Ice wall that Frost managed to pull up in front of the Canary right before she sped off with her. Caitlin had been consuming a lot of power, her velocity was slower than normal and with a passenger that was taken down another notch. Eobard managed to catch up to them and hitting the speedster in the leg with his vibrating hand, which prompted her to lose focus and fall to the ground with a Dazed canary falling near her. The moment he tried to attack the two persons on the ground two massive jets of flame hit him in the back prompting him to retreat. Firestorm landed near the two projecting a large firewall toward the direction the speedster left.

 **"Frost, Canary, you two ok?"** He asked while looking around seeing the Flash and his reverse trading punches.

 **"I'm fine. Just a bit dizzy"** Laurel replied **"How about you, Frost?"**

 **"I'll be all right"** The injury on her leg was visible **"Keep him off our backs for a bit. I need to accelerate the healing so I can run"** she said to Firestorm as he put her earrings on suppression. The burning man created a firewall around them with only a small opening for them to get out then turned back to see the injury on Frost's leg healing itself rather fast. In the span of at the most 30 seconds she was back on her feet and the earrings were off again. As the Flash and Eobard were battling the Arrow could not get one shot in. They were moving too fast.

 **"Arrow, fire them at me"** Frost told him coming into view. Oliver hesitated for a bit then he saw that she had the thick ice shield covering her. Without thinking a second time he cocked three more arrows and sent them flying at her.

 ** _"Watch out. 3 arrows are incoming. I know you can see them so try to maneuver Eobard to get hit"_** she told Barry while she slingshot all the arrows putting even more speed and power into them toward the two speedsters. Oliver was shocked for a second seeing his arrows reach speeds he could never think possible.

 ** _"Got it, thank you for the warning, Cait"_** he replied as he took the fight with the evil speedster in the path of the arrows which were redirected by Frost. The ploy partially worked, as they fought Eobard managed to see the arrows coming and dodged two of them the third hitting him in the shoulder with enough force to go straight thought him and enter halfway into the ground where it hit. Sadly, that was a normal arrow but it was enough to make him wince. One of the others contained the nanites.

Oliver pulled back to the cars where the two techies were working to be there just in case the speedster would try to injure Cisco or Felicity. Diggle was also as well, he didn't know what he could do against someone like Barry, but he wanted to protect his friends.

Eobard was letting himself be followed around by Firestorm who was throwing fireballs at him. He went faster and faster enough to produce a sonic boom near the burning man. The shock managed to extinguish his flames and rendered him unconscious, but when he tried to finish the job a hail of icicles was being flung at him by Frost. Flash took him and left him near the van only to return seeing Eobard chasing around Frost. He was slow now, he didn't even manage to catch her, but his determination was admirable.

 ** _"Lead him toward me. I'll get him off your back"_** he thought to his partner. **" _How are you on energy reserves?"_**

 ** _"Quite low. Our suspicion seems correct. This is the first time that I had to use my powers in a prolonged fight. Sustained ice attacks do drain a lot out of me"_** she replied while running toward him.

Nevertheless, the Reverse Flash wasn't running toward them. He had set his sight on the cars where Felicity and Cisco were now out trying to get Firestorm awake. Bette was still out from the punch earlier. Oliver was hurt from the hits that he took as well, but he was trying to stay aware of how the battle was going. Canary was creating sound walls with her cry at points where she knew that the Reverse Flash might try to attack from, points that were suggested by Oliver. She didn't argue, she knew that he hadn't gotten where he was now without situational Awareness and tactical thinking.

Eobard avoided the hit that was coming for him straight on and went toward the cars. Flash and Frost were on his tail and she was throwing icicles at his legs to try and redirect his movement. In the blink of an eye he was holding Felicity as a hostage with his vibrating hand.

 **"Now, what will the great assembly of heroes manage to do now that I have a hostage. Do you try to kill me and kill her with me or do you stand by and watch as she dies"** Eobard grinned at them not seeing the cloud of blue fog that was coming toward him.

 **"Felicity, DROP NOW!"** Frost yelled at her. The blonde couldn't comply. Eobard was holding her tight from the neck as the cloud hit them. Oliver was watching the position of the bodies as the fog hit them. Felicity struggled enough to not be right in front of him even if he was holding her. The next second he shot 3 arrows at the fog at precise spots, prompting a cry from the two speedsters that had arrived behind him.

 **"Oliver, are you sure you didn't hit her?"** Barry asked.

 **"Frost can you get rid of the fog?"** He asked with a concerned voice. **"I might have hit her if the position I saw right before the fog hit has been altered by him. If not, then she is unharmed"** she waved and the fog dissolved seeing a horrified face on Felicity who dropped to the ground. Behind her, Eobard with two arrows straight through his eyes and one through his heart fell unmoving to the ground.

 **"Are you all right?"** Oliver was near her in the blink of an eye. For someone that was just a friend, the archer sure manifested his concerns quite openly.

 **"Yes, I'm fine"** she managed to speak after swallowing a few times to get rid of the knot in her neck.

 **"We can't get what you needed now"** Oliver said removing his hood with a touch of guilt in his voice looking at a dead Reverse Flash that was lying on the ground, but a raised hand from Barry stopped him from continuing.

 **"I was pretty clear that if anyone is in danger you put an arrow through his heart. I wasn't too specific about shooting him in the eyes as well, although to be fair that was pretty awesome. I didn't know you had a flair for the dramatic, Oliver"** the speedster chuckled.

 **"Barry is right, you did the right thing, Oliver. I'm pretty sure Felicity will agree with you as well"** Caitlin smiled looking at the blonde that was sitting on the pavement, smiling back at the archer. After using smelling salts on Bette and giving Firestorm an infusion of oxygen the two woke up as well.

 **"Did we win?"** a drowsy Bette asked as Cisco put back the cuffs on her. The image of the evil speedster on the ground behind her answered that and she smiled pulling Cisco into a hug **"We won"**

 **"Wow that was a loud bang"** Firestorm separated into his 2 constituent parts which were both rubbing their ears to get the ringing out of them

Their victory was short lived when they looked at the city. Above it, the clouds in the sky had started to swirl in a concentric ring, almost reminiscent of water going down the drain. Cisco looked up panicked and went back to the van. He knew already what was happening just from that picture alone.

 **"Guys, we have a problem. The reactor charging has created a singularity in the pipeline. Most of the cells that used to contain our metahumans are now empty. They all escaped. When the accelerator was activated, the energy that went into the containment cells was cut off"** Cisco said with a panicked look on his face.

 **"A singularity? You mean a damn black hole?"** Barry almost yelled.

 **"Yes. I was keeping an eye on the charging of the accelerator while you guys fought. Moreover, we were trying to shut it down, but it was powered by some sort of futuristic power cell and the commands were locked out. We couldn't do anything"** Felicity said in a breath.

 **"Was Eobard trying to kill the entire planet?"** Caitlin asked shocked **"If he's from the future then killing everyone would mean that he gets erased from existence so … that couldn't have been his master plan"**

 **"We need to get to STAR. Maybe we can do something from inside. The fact that the accelerator is now overloaded triggered the automatic protocols to shut out any intruders. All the remote access is dead"** Cisco replied and looked at the two speedsters.

 **"I'll take them. You follow. Your cells are almost depleted from the fighting, you don't have enough strength to carry two passengers around"** Barry said and in an instant Felicity and Cisco were gone. Firestorm was still a bit disoriented so they all got into the cars and drove toward the city. Caitlin took Barry's advice and got into a car herself. She knew that blacking out at 800 mph on a crowded street wasn't something she would want to do. As the cars were leaving the airfield, Barry and his two passengers already reached the Cortex. He left them at the consoles while he took a breather.

 **"Felicity, can you close the power regulation system?"** Cisco asked.

 **"Wouldn't that cause the lab to explode?"** the blonde looked at his with a surprised face. **"I don't really want to be blown to smithereens"**

 **"No, the singularity will stop receiving power and even if the power regulators blow, the force of the blast will be absorbed. The gravity is already 4 times more than that of the earth's, down in the pipeline at the moment. I'm surprised that there isn't a time dilation effect occurring already. If it was then we should be feeling it already"** Cisco replied as he tried to overload the capacitors in the pipeline.

 **"Damn encryptions. I haven't seen anything this complicated. It might take me a while. How are the readings on the black hole?"** she asked

 **"Still drawing power from the pipeline, but at the moment stable. The problem is the gravitational pull is still increasing. If this goes on it might collapse the lab, including the area we're in now"** the engineer sounded kind of worried.

 **"It doesn't matter. Even if the lab collapses I can get you out of here before you get harmed. Keep working"** Barry assured them. His panting had gone, but he could feel a grumbling in his stomach. **"Cisco, you said you were working on something for emergencies? A power bar that can restore at least some of my lost energy?"**

 **"Yeah, I forgot to tell you about those. There are two of them in my lab"** Barry was back in less than a second taking a bite of one of the weird looking brownish bars. As soon as the taste hit him he made a grimace and his face turned a greenish hue.

 **"I'm guessing you didn't think much about actually making them taste like something"** the Flash grumbled while forcing himself to take another bite **"It's like I'm eating burnt rubber with a side dish of asphalt"**

 **"How would you know how asphalt tastes like"** Felicity started to laugh at him, lightening the mood in the room a bit.

 **"I might have tasted it when I was blacking out a few months back"** he said truthfully prompting a laugh from Cisco, but as bad as the power bars were after only two pieces he felt better. He was no longer hungry and it was like his energy was at least partially back. A quarter of an hour passed before they were joined by the others. Barry told them to wait outside, in case something went wrong he could only manage to get two people out, the others would be hurt if they hung around the main control area that would be the first to fall if the gravitational pull of the black hole became too much for the buildings support structure to handle.

 **"Got it. Power Regulators are disengaging"** Felicity quipped. The lab started to shake and an explosion felt. The regulator in which the power cell was put exploded with enough force to bump the black hole out of the accelerator and into the atmosphere above the city, where it started to grow, consuming matter at an alarming rate. Barry flashed the two outside with the others, which were watching the swirling blue vortex as it grew

 **"This is bad"** Professor Stein managed to utter looking at the event horizon **"The singularity is growing, if we don't do anything it will become large enough to consume this planet"**

 **"What if I run inside it at a high rate of speed. Like trying to stifle a tornado by running in the opposite direction"** Barry asked while Caitlin was already giving him worried looks.

 **"Mr. Allen, this is an event of immense energy. I don't think even you can stop it. You don't have the energy output for anything of this size"** the reply came with quite a worried tone.

 **"Barry, you`re almost out of energy yourself, if you go up there you will die"** Caitlin pleaded giving him a look that begged him to reconsider.

 **"I'm fine, Cisco gave me some of his burnt rubber power bars. I have enough energy"** The Flash replied.

 **"I don't want you to get yourself killed"** Caitlin managed to articulate cursing in her mind that she was so low on energy that she couldn't help. Maybe with two speedsters that would have been possible.

 **"I have to try"** he went over to Caitlin who had turned her earrings on suppression, in case she needed the last of her strength to run someone to safety **"You do realize that I at least have to try. If I don't this planet is gone and the woman I love with it. That is not something I ever want to happen. I love you too much"** He kissed her passionately and as he did lightning began to surround them. His lightning and hers were dancing around them producing a wind effect that had the others out their hands in front of their faces and hold on as to not be blown away. The lightning vortex kept growing and growing in size, almost like the two were forming a tornado but by standing still, before coming to an absolute halt like an aura who was presenting itself like a large fire started to burn around them and then disappearing into the nothingness it first appeared out of.

 ** _"What just happened? I feel like I had to eat 20 pizzas"_** she asked him while the aura died down around them.

 ** _"I don't know. I feel completely powered up now. Actually I feel more power than I have felt in a long time"_** he answered.

 **"Are you guys all right?"** Felicity asked them. They turned toward her and smiled. Their eyes were flashing lightning at a rate that the people around them had never seen before

 **"We seem to … have recharged one another"** The Flash told them

 **"Ah, the power of young love"** Professor Stein smiled at the two as the others chuckled forgetting for a brief moment the danger that was lurking overhead.

 **"We have to go"** the two flashed away to the center of the city and up a building jumping into the singularity and running side by side as fast as they could

 **"They're doing it. They`re stabilizing the black hole by adding to its angular momentum. This is astounding, I never thought those two could generate this much energy. They are literally braking a black hole's rotation"** the professor spoke seriously impressed by the power of the two.

 **"Keep it up guys, the singularity is stabilizing"** Cisco told them through the comms.

 **"Cisco, this is not easy work. I don't think we can hold it steady much longer"** Barry told them

 **"We need to merge the inner and outer event horizon. That is the only way to close this monstrosity"** Professor Stein stated bluntly

 **"And how do we do that?"** Ronnie asked

 **"We have to force a separation by taking off the quantum splicer in the middle of the singularity. The force from the atomic blast might be enough to fuse the hole shut"** he explained as plainly as he could.

 **"Wouldn't that …"** Caitlin asked over the intercom

 **"Yes. It will most likely kill us both"** the professor responded. Her heart went into her throat.

 **"You up for this professor?"** Ronnie asked

 **"I have to be. For Clarissa. Are you, Ronald?"**

 **"Yes. For Caitlin. For Barry. For Cisco. And for everyone here who has been a friend to me until now"** he responded without flinching.

 **"No Ronnie. Don't. You'll die. I don't want to lose you again"** Caitlin cried in the intercom.

 **"Cait. You know I have to do this. If we don't, the entire world is doomed. Remember that I love you. I cannot let family and my friends die, if I can do something about it"** Ronnie answered as he looked at Cisco, Bette and even Team Arrow. He felt like he had known them for so long that they were best friends.

 **"I know. I love you too. Ronnie"** She managed to say the words but Barry saw her tears

 ** _"He is going to be a hero … again, Cait"_** he thought

 ** _"I know and I can't stop him from doing it. He is doing this for us"_** she was crying as she ran

 ** _"Let's hope he isn't sacrificing himself for nothing. Because if this doesn't work, the next ones who are going to embrace eternity will be you and I"_** he stated the obvious.

 ** _"If we have to, then at least let's embrace it together. You and me, Barry, not against the world this time, but for the world"_** She replied. The two ran closer and closer to each other and joined hands, as their resolution strengthened they began to run even faster as a trail of combined lightning looking like a second funnel was coming out of the singularity and pushing into the event horizon almost like a cork.

Firestorm merged again and flew straight into the singularity above where Flash and Frost were running. Ronnie pulled the quantum splicer off his chest and he exploded in a blinding flash of light. The singularity started to buckle under its own gravity. The two ran toward the ground on the pieces of falling debris, they saw the body of Professor Stein and Barry managed to catch him. As they got to the ground, back to where their friends were, the singularity closed and everything started falling back to the ground.

Barry took Caitlin in his arms and sat on the ground with her in his lap as she started to cry her heart out. Ronnie was gone. He had saved the city again, no this time he had saved the world. Felicity was sitting on the pavement with Diggle and Oliver. They had thought this would be the end, but thanks to Ronnie they survived to fight another day. At the end of the day they decided to congratulate themselves on a job well done and go to a bar and drink in honor of the one they lost.

 ** _"Need a drink?"_** he asked as they went into the bar and sat down at a table. They all had normal clothes on. They packed some necessities since they didn't know how long this was going to take. Barry phoned a hotel and got them rooms as Felicity did in Starling. They would be on their way the next day. Except Professor Stein who was not feeling like himself, so Barry and Caitlin told him to stay so they could run tests on him to see if he was all right.

 ** _"You know we can't get drunk"_** she replied

 ** _"That's not what I asked. I asked if you want a drink. I don't know if it will help with anything, but if there's anyone who needs a drink, it's you"_** the answer came

 ** _"Yea. I need a drink"_** she replied. He smiled as the others ordered for themselves. He went outside and flashed back to STAR picking up some more vials of Killer Flash, in about a minute he was back. **" _Thank you, Barry"_** She gave him a weak smile as he got two shot glasses and poured each other a vial sitting down next to her. His hand went around her waist and she took it in hers, putting her head on his shoulder.

 ** _"You are welcome, Cait"_** he smiled

 **"What's that?"** Felicity asked. **"Can we have some?"**

 **"I would prefer that you don't die of alcohol poisoning, Felicity"** Barry smiled **"It's something Cait has been making in the lab and I have been perfecting it without telling her"**

 **"So... what is it?"** Oliver asked getting his own beer.

 **"Let's just go with extremely concentrated alcohol. People like Cait and me cannot get drunk from normal alcohol. Doesn't matter how much we drink. This concoction is the only thing that works"** Barry explained

 **"Ah. That's why none of us can drink it. We'd be in the hospital from one sip of that"** Diggle chimed in

 **"I would actually say that you would probably die of alcohol poisoning. Yes, pretty much. Also, this has immediate effects so … in order to not get wasted, we kind of need to drink it slow"** Barry hinted and Caitlin nodded. She didn't want to repeat the drunken mess from their first date.

 **"To Ronald"** Stein raised his glass.

 **"To Ronnie"** everyone raised a glass

 **"To our friend"** Cisco chimed in

 **"To my brother"** Caitlin said

 **"To the man that saved the world"** Barry added as they all drank their respective drink of choice.

* * *

AN : This is the end of the chapter dump i wanted to do for now. Its at the end of season 1. I'll be waiting for opinions and reviews from you and continue to post chapters as i manage to write and edit them at least to get the majority of the typos out.

Have fun reading, everyone and hope to hear opinions from you soon.


	23. Surprises

Thank you for all the reviews. I have seen some people find the bold dialogue annoying. Let me offer an explanation for that. In a normal story there is dialogue between two people, and internal monologue of someone. IN my case there appears the fact that two characters talk between themselves in their head. It is way easier to represent that via style rather than anything else. Bold is spoken dialogue, bold italic is thought dialogue and italic are messages that might appear. With that said, i hope you enjoy the next parts. Depending on how much time i have i will update this story weekly with at least one chapter, if not more.

Happy Easter to all that had it, in my case, its coming at the end of this week so ill be out for a couple of days. Here is something to keep you all occupies while i enjoy s few days off with my family.

Happy reading.

* * *

The next few weeks were hard, but with Barry by her side Caitlin managed to feel better and let go the pain. She still felt the loss, but she appreciated what Ronnie did for her, for Barry and everyone else. It offered her comfort in thinking of him as a hero. Barry on the other hand blamed himself for Ronnie's death, but with her by his side he understood that what her brother did was his choice and instead of blaming himself he should appreciate his sacrifice. Neither of them had been to STAR in months. It was just … too weird to be there.

Cisco was working for the CCPD helping them with metahuman issues. After the shapeshifter incident, Captain Singh thought it to be a good idea to create a metahuman task force. Joe leading it, with Cisco as the technical whiz and Eddie as backup. He still refused to give the engineer a badge though. At night, the two speedsters were helping by speeding along reconstruction of the city. It gave them both something to do and they both felt responsible for the destruction caused by Eobard Thawne. Caitlin was restless because she didn't really have a job anymore with STAR being closed. She wanted to go work at Mercury Labs, where Tina McGee had made it clear on more than one occasion she would have a place if she ever wanted to come, but decided against it choosing to go help Barry with his cases. They hadn't really had time to reconnect with Iris or Eddie, Barry was at his CSI job when he was needed, but not more and usually he would finish the cases in record time with Caitlin's help and then the two would speed off again. Tonight, they were working to rebuild Jitters.

The beautiful dance of lightning could not be seen from outside as the entrance was barred and covered, but it wasn't hidden from the back entrance where someone stood and watched shocked. Iris had been following the two speedsters while they helped reconstruct the city. She had her ideas and hunches about who they were so tonight was a surprise for her. Flash and Frost were inside Jitters rebuilding it from the ground up after most of it was damaged because of the gravity well that the black hole was putting out.

At one point, Flash took off his cowl to get some sweat off his brow and at that point Iris froze. The familiar face of Barry Allen was smiling at Frost. She could not believe her eyes. Barry Allen was the Flash. But then … who would Frost be? She thought enough about it but Barry put on his mask and the dance of lightning began again. Iris stood in awe at how in sync the two speedsters were. Their movements were speedy and fluid, but they weren't impairing each other, it was more like they were helping each other through their movements. Handing each other objects and stuff they needed. She decided to just go with it and entered Jitters through the back door prompting the two flashes to stop

 **"You know. If you ever want to stop to be the Flash, you can have a future as a contractor"** She said smiling.

 **"Say what now?"** Barry looked at her with a quizzical look.

 **"Or maybe you want to make the CSI job at the CCPD a bit more permanent?"** she continued. Barry looked at her with a quizzical look

 **"It's fine, Barry. I know you`re the Flash, but I got tired of waiting for you to tell me"** she lied. **"I just don't know who she is"** Iris pointed at Frost.

 **"My wonderful girlfriend, that's who"** Barry stated bluntly as Frost had a grin appear on her face.

 **"You have a girlfriend? Well that's new to me. Who else knows?"** Iris asked him with a bit or ire in her voice.

 **"Everyone ... except you"** Frost answered for him **"We never had the time to tell you, with Eddie proposing and stuff then with the giant hole above the city ... you know. We had superhero stuff to do. You would think that closing a black hole is easy, we can both tell you it's not. It's extremely hard"**

 **"How do you know Eddie proposed?"** then she realized she had the ring on her finger.

 **"Because he told me and since she can hear my thoughts she knows as well. We already know you said yes. Because we can see the ring on your finger. Iris, I'm a CSI, I get paid to be hyper observant and this beautiful woman here is the same. Come on it's like you didn't live with me while I worked at the CCPD"** Barry spoke. **"Seriously now, you, of all people, have no idea who Frost is? Really? What kind of reporter are you?"** He laughed trying to tease her.

 **"No, I don't. I didn't even know you had a girlfriend"** she replied bluntly and then she remembered that night with Barry in the house after she had that fight with Eddie. She remembered the way Barry protected Caitlin Snow.

 **"You want to show her?"** Barry asked Frost while he took off his mask

 **"Now that you ousted me as your girlfriend, you dork, she is going to find out eventually anyway, it's not like we hide in public or anything. Well, I mean not from now on anyway"** Frost smiled taking off her mask and activating the suppression mode on her earrings. Iris's face fell. She was right, ever since that night she had felt that Barry had a connection to someone else that was not her. A connection that was far stronger. It was easy for her to have Barry around, but she never regarded him as more than a best friend, something that she realized was wrong, after having that jealous fit at the Christmas party and then again at the dinner with Felicity and Ray. Ever since that night something had been stirring in the back of her mind, but realizing how close the two were… an epiphany came. Barry Allen had a girlfriend that was just like him.

 **"Caitlin"** she managed to speak after being in shock for a bit **"It's you. Somehow, that doesn't really surprise me"** to the two it was obvious that she was lying, but they let it go.

 **"In the flesh. Hello, Iris"** She smiled.

 **"I did not see that coming. Even though, if Barry got his speed from the lightning, it was obvious who Frost was. Except maybe I didn't want to see it** " Iris muttered. **"So … who else knows? So I know who to not spill the beans to"**

 **"Pretty much everyone knows from our small circle. Joe, Eddie, Felicity and a few other friends"** Caitlin responded.

 **"I understand now. That's why you were speaking for Eddie that night. About keeping things that they swore to never share"** Iris had a realization that almost made her face palm herself.

 **"Yes. The nature of the job required that we revealed ourselves to Eddie. We needed his help with the Reverse Flash. Which turned out to be Harrison Wells. He knew our secret and swore to keep it. It was not his to tell. He was pretty broken about it when you started playing hard to get, because a secret that was not his was destroying your relationship. So I came and gave you a little metal boot to the ass. As for why we didn't tell you? If you want to ask someone that question, I would ask Joe. He's the reason that you haven't found out about us for the last year or so. He was very adamant that we keep you out of any of our superhero business. Even though we at least tried to keep you informed about certain things"** Barry said.

 **"Why would my father keep me out of the loop? Why would he force you to stay quiet too?"** Iris asked confused.

 **"That's a simple one to answer. You like to investigate or better said poke around where you don't belong. You`re about as stubborn as Joe is. Some of the cases in the CCPD that you were … on to, lead directly to Harrison Wells and we know what he did to the last reporter that tried to get on his case"** Caitlin answered

 **"You mean Mason Bridges?"** she asked.

 **"Yes, your latest grand case out of which I shunned you every time I could. Mason Bridges was killed by the Reverse Flash"** Barry answered

 **"And the Brazil story Eddie told me?"**

 **"I fed him that story. I thought you might ask him so I gave him fake info to rather stop you from investigating all together or throw you off track enough while we were trying to capture him"** Barry acknowledged

 **"So you have been lying to me this whole time huh?"** She said visibly angry **"That's what I get for not knowing my best friend"**

 **"If you want to complain about that to someone, feel free to go talk to Joe. I don't want to hear it. It would have made more sense to tell you and have you release the information we gave you to the public rather than your own suppositions. As for not knowing your best friend, yeah, you could say that. But on the other hand, I haven't been the one that moved away and when we went out you kept snogging Eddie and ignoring me, although to be honest with you, after I met this beautiful woman, I couldn't care less if you gave me attention or not, she was the only one on my mind"** Barry said with a smirk on his face completely shutting down Iris's attempts at a reply.

 **"Can we help you with something though at this precise moment? If not we'd really like to get Jitters clean till tomorrow. We miss our coffee"** Caitlin smiled at her with a bit of sarcasm in her voice.

 **"Not really, I wanted an interview with Flash and Frost for the paper, but I see your busy"** She managed to blurt out.

 **"It's not like you can't get an interview with us … anytime. Like that's a problem"** Caitlin smirked.

 **"That's true"** Iris admitted **"I still appreciate the kick in the ass you gave me that night. I thought it over for a while and you were right and it also saved me and Eddie. Thank you for that"**

 **"That's what family does. Oh, before you leave. You want to see something cool?"** Barry smiled

 **"I don't know if it will top the lightning display you put on earlier. You two seem like you can hear each other's thoughts"** Iris replied

 **"Yes, we can, we kind of mentioned that earlier… did you tune that out?"** Barry grinned

 **"I think I did, but ... how?"** Iris asked surprised.

 **"Side effect of the lightning. That's what we have. We shared knowledge, I can hear his thoughts he can hear mine. Sometimes with strong emotions coming from one, the other can feel them too and we can share a dream if we touch when we sleep. Did I cover everything?"** Caitlin looked at Barry while Iris's jaw firmly planted itself on the floor.

 **"Pretty much, Cait"** Barry smiled.

 **"That's ... incredible"** Iris finally managed to talk after recovering from the shock. **"How does it work?"**

 **"Here, let me demonstrate. Barry can you go outside for a bit? Don't forget your mask"** Caitlin asked her boyfriend. He nodded and went out **"Now, tell me what you would want to eat?"**

 **"Milk and donuts"** After about 5 seconds on a table in Jitters there were milk and donuts, plus two large pizzas and some orange juice.

 **"There you go. Barry was outside, he couldn't have heard what you told me** " She smiled

 **"But what's with the pizza and orange juice?"** the brunette asked surprise at the extra items that appeared.

 **"Oh that was my order. I was hungry too. This whole rebuilding thing takes a lot out of us"** Caitlin grinned. Iris took the milk and donuts.

 **"By the way. Are you coming to Flash and Frost day?"** she asked with a questioning tone

 **"Of course we are. We wouldn't miss it"** Barry replied

 **"You said you wanted to show me something cool? What was it?"** she asked before exiting.

 **"Oh, this. I think Cisco called it a bonafide Anime transformation"** Caitlin turned her earrings off. The familiar blue mist surrounded her in a few seconds Frost came out with a grin to which Barry's smirk from right beside her was added.

 **"Ok, that is really cool. I'll leave you to your work. Can I come tomorrow and get my coffee here?"** she smiled

 **"More than likely. We should be done in about an hour after we eat"** Barry replied

 **"Bye, Iris"** the couple waved her off

 ** _"Man, I do not want to be Joe tonight"_** Barry started to chuckle as they ate. **" _He's going to have a big surprise. She is as stubborn as he is. Their fight should either turn into an epic clash of titans or nothing more than a few lines. Even if he did want to protect her, he did lie the most, I don't think Iris will appreciate that. He's going to have a hard time explaining what he was thinking to her. There are only so many times he can play the dad card"_**

 ** _"Not really our problem, is it?"_** Caitlin asked with a cold demeanor

 ** _"Nope, not at all. Let's get this done so we can go home and sleep. I'm getting drowsy already. Besides this is cutting into my time enjoying some Snow in the evening"_** Barry said with a pervy smile on his face.

 ** _"This is what I get for having a boyfriend who seems to have his mind in the gutter at all times. Not that I don't appreciate it. Hey, Barry, before we get on with the rebuilding, mind giving me an answer to a small question?"_** Caitlin asked and he nodded. She thought to herself in a quiet manner that it would have been time to ask this, it felt like a good moment to do so. Especially after Iris had left with a frown on her face. Besides, it felt right, _for her **"Would you like to move in with me?"**_

 ** _"Wait, did you say what I think you said?"_** Barry smiled.

 ** _"Yep"_** she grinned.

 ** _"Well to be fair, I have been sleeping at your place 5/7 nights a week. So … I'm almost already moved in. But yes, Caitlin Snow. I would absolutely love to move in with you"_** Barry said with a goofy grin on his face. The genuine smile that the turned into made Caitlin happy beyond measure and with her brother gone, she wanted Barry close to her.

 ** _"I love you"_** she thought as they sealed the deal with a long soft kiss.

 ** _"I love you too, Cait"_** Barry smiled toward her putting his mask on after they separated. The two got back to work in a faster pace than before. They would have Jitters ready in less than an hour, before going back to their home. **_Their_** home. Had a nice ring to it, for Barry and for her.

The next morning Barry got called into a CSI matter with the police. There was a body at the nuclear plant that had been found the night before and Joe needed some expertise. As always the two arrived on the scene going straight toward Joe and the body. Unknown to them there was someone taking pictures in the background.

 **"Hey, Bar. Caitlin. So … you had a chat with Iris last night huh?"** Joe asked while the two were checking the crime scene for evidence

 **"Yea. How do you know? Oh. Wait let me guess: she came home pissed you kept us from telling her the truth"** Barry replied

 **"Pretty much. She was furious. She kept going on and on about how she is not a little girl and she can take care of herself. I'm scared for her, Barry. What if one of these maniacs does something to her?"** Joe's expression was replaced by one of worry.

 **"We do what we can do. She can always call us if she needs help. Now that she knows who we are. Which by the way I have no idea how she found out. Not like it really matters now. I thought, after she said she knew for a while who the Flash was, that she would be coming to invite us to her wedding, but I guess not"** Barry replied.

 **"I'm actually surprised she didn't yet. Pretty sure she did invite a few people already. Who knows, maybe your invite is in the mail. Anyway, back to business. His name is Al Rothstein, a welder here at the plant. One of his colleagues found him this morning like this. So, did you get anything?"** the detective asked looking at the two.

 **"Well petechial hemorrhaging in the eyes and the bruising around his neck … he was strangled by something really big and really strong"** Barry concluded and saw a worried face on Joe

 **"No, it wasn't Grodd"** Caitlin whispered to the detective

 **"Thank god for that. I've had enough of psychic gorillas with superhuman strength to last me for a long while"** he replied with a sigh

 **"We'll let you know what we find out, all right?"** Barry concluded while they were heading out. Joe nodded.

It was Flash and Frost day and in Central City Park everyone was waiting for our heroes to make an appearance. The mayor wanted to give them keys to the city but they seemed to be fashionably late. They did arrive and received their awards a few minutes later, as the people cheered, but the celebration as short lived. A man in a mask made his appearance headed straight for the police cruisers. He had a mask on so the officers started firing at him. The bullets didn't really help, they bounced off him. Cisco tried the new device he developed while at the CCPD, the boot he called it. But when Joe got it on the metahuman he just absorbed the energy and grew larger prompting his face mask to disengage for a minute. Cisco froze, the environment around him became blue and he could see someone that he could only think as a speedster, with all the blue lightning that came off of him, talking to the metahuman Rothstein. He could not hear what they were saying.

Joe and Cisco, as well as Barry and Caitlin who were watching everything that happened, were stunned. Al Rothstein, the man who they saw dead the same morning at the nuclear plant, was standing right in front of them. In a flash, the two surrounded Rothstein with fuel canisters prompting Joe to shoot at them. They managed to get Cisco and Joe far enough away before the canisters fully exploded, but the metahuman was not fazed by them one bit. He did catch a glimpse of Flash and Frost and decide it would be better to retreat.

Back at the CCPD, Cisco confirmed that their Rothstein was still in the morgue, so ... that ruled out zombie metahuman. He could not shake the feeling and the images that he had gotten at the site of the attack and he was wondering about who the Blue lightning speedster was.

Barry and Caitlin were back in the CSI lab working on the stuff they retrieved from the crime scene. One item in particular held more interest than the others, a radiation badge that dead Rothstein had on him. That type of badge should have had a minuscule amount of radiation as a reference point to be used in the change process, but when they examined it … the badge was completely devoid of any form of radiation.

 **"This is strange. Maybe the badge was defective?"** Barry asked.

 **"It shouldn't have been. These types of badges have to be checked by the personnel every day. These things are what keep them safe. I don't think they would be so negligent as to not see if they work or not"** Caitlin replied.

 **"Barry Allen?"** a stranger entered the lab prompting the two to stop their banter.

 **"Yes. That's me"**

 **"My name is Greg Turk. I'm an attorney at Weathersby and Stone. I usually don't make house calls, but this time I thought I'd make an exception since I have been trying to get in touch with you for several months"** the person smiled shaking Barry's hand.

 **"Sorry about that, we have been really busy with police work and to be honest I don't even know where my mail goes these days"** Barry excused himself

 **"That is fine. We need to talk about Harrison Wells"** the lawyer replied. The two made a grimace at the sound of that name. **"As you might of might have not known, Dr. Wells was sole proprietor and owner of STAR labs as well as a few other enterprises beside that. In the event of his death, he had this living will that stated the following. Everything he owned would be passed over to you, as long as you viewed whatever it is on this flash drive he left with us. The device will send me a message when it is viewed and we can transfer the ownership to Dr. Wells' assets to you"** He handed Barry a flash drive. **"You would have had up to a year to view this but without a proper owner the properties will go into foreclosure as per state law in a week. That's the reason for the personal visit"**

 **"Thank you, Mr. Turk. We had no idea what Dr. Wells had such a will** " Caitlin replied and the man answered.

 **"Also, in this envelope you will be able to see a small summary of his assets. You will get the complete list when I get the message along with the already done property papers which you only have to sign"** The lawyer turned to leave after shaking both hands. **"I hope to hear from you soon"**

 ** _"He doesn't even give us peace even after he dies"_** Barry thought with a sigh. **" _I don't really want to watch this, Cait. It makes me queasy even thinking about it"_**

 ** _"How about we watch it together. I'm pretty sure you won't have a problem then"_** she smiled kissing his lips. They sat down in the lab, closed the door and started watching. A familiar face appeared on the monitor.

 **"Hello Barry. If you are watching this … then something must have gone horribly wrong or I am dead. Which means the last 15 years were for nothing. Bummer, 15 years. That is what I would call a colossal waste of time. You know what I realized in these years watching you grow, training you and helping you. Even if I am dead it was not a waste of time and we were never really enemies Barry. I'm not the thing that you hate, and with that out of the way... I am going to give you the thing you want most. It doesn't matter, you won't truly be happy, unless there is a certain doctor there right now watching this with you. In which case I retract my previous statement. Hello, Caitlin. Now, erase everything I have said up to this point, give the following video to the police. My name is Harrison Wells. Being of sound mind and body I freely confess to the murder of Nora Allen in her home in the year 2000…"** The two watched the video till the end and their faces became livid.

 **"He confessed. I can't believe he confessed. This is what I need to get my dad out of prison"** Barry was almost crying.

 **"I'll have everyone meet us at STAR"** Caitlin started dialing numbers and told everyone where to meet as the two flashed out of the room taking the sealed envelope and the confession of the fake Wells with them. After an hour they were back at STAR and everyone was gathered there from the people in their own team.

 **"You think the video is enough?"** Joe was on the phone with the DA talking about the recording that he had Barry take to her. **"Well sure a living confession would be better, but the guy is dead so …"** Joe trailed off. **"All right. Thank you** " he ended the call

 **"So what did she say?"** Barry was pacing around his foster father.

 **"She thinks the odds are good to get your father out of prison"** the detective replied seeing the happiness on Barry's face as they went back to the cortex. Everyone was there, Iris with Eddie, Cisco with Bette, Caitlin and Professor Stein, who had been helping the team while he was there. Barry didn't want to admit it but Wells was a smart man and sometimes his input was sorely missed, but now with Professor Stein here, that turned out to be a non-issue. Cisco and Bette were looking over the papers in the envelope that the lawyer left.

 **"Barry, did you actually look at what's on these?"** the engineer asked.

 **"No, we didn't have time. I don't really care"** Barry answered

 **"Well, besides the fact that you`re my boss now and Caitlin's since she never really resigned from here. Take a look at the net income the labs bring on a monthly basis"** Barry took the papers and went over to Caitlin as they both read them. There was a figure Circled in red halfway down the page just from STAR Labs patents. The two almost choked. **"$35.000.000"** Going down further on the page there were other enterprises that were making money for the fake Wells, a secondary red figure on the same page was the total income of the secondary properties. **"$42.000.000".**

 **"Wow"** Both of them managed to speak after a long while of gawking at the paper **"Had no idea that Eobard was making money off Flash, Frost and Arrow merchandise either. Sneaky one that one was. Just makes me want to clock him one for being that cheeky"** Barry continued.

 **"What did you see?"** Joe asked and looked at Cisco who was grinning.

 **"Well … apparently everything that Wells owned, which is now mine … had a positive income rating. Of about 77 million … per month"** Barry scratched his head, not believing it himself.

 **"That's not all. According to this paper. The combined value of all the assets without the income, is around 950 million"** Caitlin said almost not being able to swallow **"Also, the money that was not used has been set into numbered accounts in a Swiss bank. All the numbered accounts contain a total of"** she turned the page and gasped **"1.830 million"**

 **"So what you`re saying right now, Barry…"** Eddie finally managed to speak first as he recovered from the shock

 **"Is that you`re a billionaire"** Iris managed to finish Eddie's sentence

 **"It appears so …"** Flash could not ever compute the amount of money that his enemy, the man who killed his mother, had left him.

 **"I hope I don't have to call you Boss from now on"** Cisco said with a smirk on his face.

 **"We knew the money had to come from somewhere. I mean Wells was still paying us to work here and paid Barry the 6 months he stayed behind to try to get me out of my coma, but this? This was … definitely not expected"** Caitlin managed to speak.

 **"We are totally getting a new house"** Barry smiled trying to lighten up the situation.

 **"What's wrong with my apartment?"** she asked giving him the stink eye

 **"Nothing, but now … we have with what to get a new house"** he replied

 **"It's not like we spend that much time at home anyway. Just cooking and sleeping. Getting a new house now would make absolutely zero sense"** Caitlin replied

 **"Yeah, we spend the day running at superhuman speeds and waste time at home watching Netflix. That's it for what we'd call social life"** Barry started to laugh remembering the discussion they had back when they had to capture Peek-a-boo.

 **"Um, did we miss anything?"** Joe asked looking at his son

 **"Oh, sorry, we didn't have any time to tell you yet. Caitlin and I decided to move in together"** Barry nonchalantly told the group. While most of their jaws were firmly planted on the ground Cisco and Bette were grinning

 **"About time!"** the engineer said.

 **"Congratulations, I hope you're happy together"** professor Stein smiled at the couple.

 **"Congratulations"** Eddie came close and offered Barry a hand which he shook sternly. Iris was quiet, but she nodded. As much as she didn't say anything Joe and Barry saw the happiness on her face. He had found someone for him, someone he loved and that loved him back. She went to him and gave him a strong hug. **"Oh, since we didn't manage to see each other for a while, I didn't give you this. I don't like stuff to get caught in the mail when good friends are involved"** Eddie handed them two envelopes. They already knew what they were **"Sorry for being a little late, it's been crazy the last few months"** The two opened their invitations and saw that they were not the usual kind a dime a dozen. They were personalized. Barry was asked to be best man for Eddie. It was something he wrote himself, and Caitlin was asked to be maid of honor. Which was surprising considering that just a few months ago Iris had a bit of a problem with her.

 **"Err. Yes?"** Barry managed to articulate after seeing his invitation

 **"This is … unexpected"** Caitlin replied holding her invitation to which Iris promptly responded

 **"Well, you are kind of part of the family now and even if I was a bit blind you were part of the Flash family long before I was. So it's only fitting that the oldest female member gets to be my maid of honor"** Iris smiled at her.

 **"Then by all means, yes. I hope you don't want a bachelorette party though. I suck at planning parties"** Caitlin managed to articulate.

 **"No, that's fine, we can just spend a night indoors just us girls, eat ice cream and watch sappy romance movies"** She smiled at the beautiful but socially awkward scientist. **"You in, Bette?"** Iris asked.

 **"Definitely. Also maybe I should tell them that I'm a bridesmaid as well, just so no one gets surprised by that"** she quipped.

 **"How about you, Eddie? You want a bachelor party?"** Barry asked his friend

 **"With all the crap that's been going on in the city, a slow night, maybe a beer and some pool somewhere would be more welcomed than a party"** he responded. **"We do need to get Professor Stein his special brand of wine though"** they all started to laugh. They knew that Martin was a bit picky about beverages, even though the last time they went out he drank what he got his hands on without saying anything.

 **"Now how about we talk matter at hand. We can confer later about moving and the wedding and everything else"** Barry spoke. **"How do we stop Rothstein?"**

 **"Well, ever since we got our hands on that depleted radiation badge, I've been thinking. If this guy loves radiation so much, why don't we give it to him?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"You mean, over charge him … right?"** Barry smiled

 **"Yes, we just have to get him in a place with so much radiation that when he absorbs it … he burns out. Kind of what we did with Black Out that time"** she confirmed.

 **"Well, we would need to get our Atom Smasher somewhere with a lot or radiation, maybe like a nuclear plant core?"** professor Stein interjected

 **"Our … what?"** Cisco looked at him raising an eyebrow

 **"Well, Atom Smasher, because he feeds on atomic power … and he smashes. The name seems totally appropriate to me"** Martin explained.

 **"Come here"** he gave the professor a stern hug **"That is a great name. Welcome to the team"**

 **"Thank you"** the professor smiled a bit confused by Cisco's reaction

 **"We can take him to the nuclear plant, but how do we get him to come to us? " Caitlin asked.**

 **"I can build you something that will attract attention. Give me an hour or so"** the engineer left with Bette to his lab.

Barry was in the middle of the city with Frost and beside a large reflector light that projected the flash symbol on the clouds above the city. The two were looking at each other

 **"Cisco , where do you come up with this stuff?"** he asked the engineer.

 **"I saw it in a comic somewhere, something about a signal and lights. Can't really remember"** he answered before the couple saw Rothstein approach.

 **"You said you want me, right? Then come get me"** Barry smiled racing off with Frost while Rothstein was closely behind him.

 **"He's quite fast for such a large man isn't he?"** Stein commented watching him keep up with the two speedsters. The two entered the reactor core which was shut down remotely by Cisco and at the moment he got in they zipped out telling Cisco to close the door behind them. The core started to heat and radiation flooded the room. Atom Smasher tried to absorb it but his body grew till he could almost no longer fit in the chamber then started to come back to his normal size. He could not absorb any more. Cisco powered down the machine at Barry's request and they moved the now almost immobile Smasher out In front.

 **"I'm sorry. I didn't want to come to this, but I didn't want to let you hurt anyone else"** Barry stood over the Smasher as he was gasping for air. **"Why? Why did you want to kill me?"**

 **"He promised to return me home. If I killed you. This is not my Earth"** the man managed to say through the gasps

 **"Who? Who promised you that?"** Caitlin asked

 **"Zoom"** the man managed to mutter with his final breath. The words rang like an echo in Barry's mind. He knew what was coming next. A severe migraine hit him making him lose his balance and falling to the ground. The images started to flood his mind.

A speedster dressed in black, with the mask which resembled a demon and with blue lightning was holding Caitlin captive. He forced her to use her powers for something he did not see. An image of a man, someone who called himself Jay Garrick. A Flash from another earth, who had his speed stolen by Zoom. A different Harrison Wells, being in the Cortex with them working on something that was called Velocity 9 and telling them that Cisco had powers and he had been hiding them. Apparently he could have visions of things when he touched something. An image of Killer Frost and someone who looked like Ronnie back when he was Firestorm. Two Ciscos talking, one looking like he came out of a biker movie with too much hair spray and some funky glasses. The black speedster taking off his mask while he hit him, the face of the same Jay Garrick popping from under it. He was lying on the ground with an Icicle in his back being unable to move. Then he could faintly hear in the distance Caitlin's voice yelling at him while he managed to get a grasp on what was back around him.

 **"Barry! Barry! Are you all right? Say something!"** A worried Caitlin was cradling him in her arms while he had the flashbacks. This time the headache was an absolute pain, his ears were ringing, also bleeding, his vision was blurred and his eyes were bloodshot and she had a smidge of blood on her hand from his nose.

 **"I'll be fine"** he muttered while trying to get up and almost losing his footing. He would have probably fell if she didn't catch him. She wasted no time in flashing both of them back to STAR, where he was put in the medical bed while she turned on her bracer to monitor his vitals.

 **"You all right Barry?"** Eddie asked coming over to them

 **"Yea, I think his palm might have ricocheted off my forehead when we were dodging to get him in the chamber"** He lied to not worry Eddie and Iris, Caitlin however knew what the deal was.

 ** _"More images. Like the one you had in the parking lot that night"_** she stated bluntly **" _They must have been something. I felt immense fear coming from you and disappointment. Also for some reason pain, like you have lost someone very dear to you and you could never get them back"_**

 ** _"Yea. I'll share them anyway. You already know the drill. I don't know what is fake and what isn't"_** Barry managed to articulate as she gave him a shot for the headache.

 ** _"Don't worry. We'll figure it out. Together, like we always do"_ **she smiled toward him holding his hand.

 **"You guys need to stop doing that"** Bette smiled at the two **"We're here too, it's not polite to talk in your heads and leave us hanging"**

 **"It's nothing. It was a discussion about if we should move in together now or wait till we find a house for ourselves. Nothing too special. It also wasn't really meant for you** " Barry grinned to which Cisco whistled.

 **"Look at you. Don't go all domestic on us now, Flash, Frost. Someone still has to save this city you know"** he started to laugh as the group joined him.

 **"Barry, good news. The DA managed to get your father early release while the trial is pending. You can go pick him up now if you want"** Joe smiled

 **"Wow, she works fast doesn't she?"** Caitlin said surprised.

 **"When it's about an innocent man … yes, she works very fast"** the detective replied prompting strange looks from Caitlin and Barry **"What?"**

 **"Nothing"** they both smirked at him **"Let's go get your dad out of prison"** Caitlin extended a hand to her boyfriend helping him out of bed. **"How's your headache?"**

 **"I don't care about that. This is the moment I've been waiting for ever since I was 11. Let's go, Cait"** the speedster smiled brightly at her.

 **"Bring him to our house. We'll have something special waiting for him. Just … don't flash to and from the prison. We need some time to get stuff ready, so take it slow you two"** Joe smiled. Caitlin grinned.

 **"Ok. Who needs to go back to the West's in a hurry and who doesn't?"** Iris, Eddie and Stein raised their hands, each disappearing soon after they did so. Leaving Joe, Cisco and Bette

 **"We're going to go do some shopping. Remember, we need at least an hour"** The three left the cortex.

The two talked to the prison warden on the phone and he said that Henry Allen could be picked up in about 45 minutes. He needed to be checked out, changed and given his possessions. The two decided to take a cab to the prison since they had time. Upon arriving they sat on a bench overlooking the entrance, waiting for his father to come out. His hand was around her waist, hers was entangled with his and she let her head go on his shoulder as they waited. She was happy with her life until now, even though she missed Ronnie greatly, she had obtained something that in the past would have seemed only a distant dream. She felt content and safe in his arms as she relaxed letting out a small sigh.

 ** _"What you saw … it wasn't good, was it?"_** she asked with a disturbed look.

 ** _"No, I think … we are about to get another big problem. One that is … yet again, faster than both of us. Doesn't it seem odd to you that every time we get a new bad guy to take care of, he's always faster and stronger than us?"_** Barry questioned the fairness of the universe.

 ** _"I know right? What is this, Dragon ball Z?_ "** she blurted out and he started to laugh at her.

 ** _"You're such a nerd. I thought Cisco was the one that watched anime and movies"_** the speedster teased her.

 ** _"Hey, everyone tried to do a Kamehameha at one point. Even the calm and professional Dr. Snow. Only now I can actually do it, with ice blasts"_** she started to laugh herself. Barry however saw a point to that, laughing even harder. From the outside the scene was weird, the two were looking at each other and laughing at random times.

 **" _Just don't start shouting to power up and we're all good. I just hope I don't need to go all blue haired to beat whoever I saw in that vision. I would look like a total blueberry with blue hair"_** He joked making Caitlin chuckle

 ** _"Yeah, I don't look good with blonde hair. Tried it once. Nope. Not going back to it… ever"_** she commented

 ** _"Although, you look hot as sin with silver hair, Frost. We do need to remember that"_** Barry grinned making her blush

 **" _Oh god. Magical Girl Flash. Remember that?"_** she started to laugh so hard that her eyes were watering and her belly started to hurt.

 ** _"No knee high skirts. Yeah I remember. I still don't have a cool anime transformation like you"_** he pouted and made puppy dog eyes at her, but then stopped and accompanied her in laughing at how much of a nerd they both were. From a distance a figure was approaching them. In their internal discussion they had completely forgot Henry Allen that was now out and was walking toward them.

 **"Well, this is a sight that I'm not all surprised by"** Henry smiled at Barry that got pulled out of his mental talk with Caitlin

 **"Dad!"** he jumped and hugged the man that already had tears in his eyes. Caitlin had gotten off the bench offering a hand, but Henry wouldn't have it. He hugged her as hard as he had Barry just a moment ago

 **"Dr. Snow, glad to see you, yet again"** he spoke

 **"I think you know enough about me to call me Caitlin by now"** She smiled seeing both father and son with tears in their eyes.

 **"Then I demand you call me Henry. Or, maybe dad?"** his face turned into a grin that left Barry and Caitlin shocked. **"What? Too soon?"** the old man started to laugh as he saw the couple blushing badly.

 **"Let's get out of here"** Barry took his bag and Caitlin's hand in the other as they started walking toward the city

 **"I'll race you"** Henry smiled at the two speedsters.

 **"You really want to lose don't you? Are you seriously asking the two fastest people on the planet at this time for a race?"** Caitlin smirked and Barry nodded. Henry started to laugh.

They decided to walk as Joe suggested to give them more time to get home. Henry was enjoying the freedom and the fresh air, but when they got home, a surprise waited for them. Iris, Eddie, Cisco, Bette, Joe and even professor Stein and Clarissa were in the house which had in the living room a big written sign **"Welcome Home, Henry"** As they entered the house, the man in question was shocked by the multitude of people that came to greet him. He had thought it was just people that he could count on one hand. He was wrong. Tears flooded his eyes as the people gave him hugs and shook his hand congratulating him on his freedom.

The atmosphere was one of celebration as they cut the cake and talked about things that were and that are, Joe even surprised Cisco with a badge for all his good work at the CCPD. But Henry wasn't going to stay. He took Caitlin and Barry aside and thanked them again for his freedom, telling his son that he will leave for a while to find himself. Go up to his cabin maybe and fish and try to see what he had missed for the last 15 years.

Barry was sad at this, of course. But Henry knew that he had someone to count on. And he asked her in not so many words to make sure he comes home all right. Also telling Barry in not so many words that if he lets Caitlin go he will personally carve a cane out of oak and beat him with it until it breaks. The couple laughed at that. Later they flashed Henry to the station allowing him to leave and then returning to STAR where Joe was waiting for them.

 **"Did your dad get off okay?"** he asked.

 **"Yeah, we just dropped him at the station"** said Barry with a dejected face still holding Caitlin's hand.

 **"You ok?"** she asked giving him a little squeeze

 **"Yeah, no ... I don't know. Seems like every time I win, I still lose"** Barry sighed. Joe pulled two keys out of his pocket showing them to the couple.

 **"Well, it could be much worse"** he chuckled

 **"Yes, it's not bad"** Barry smiled looking at the small key with a Flash symbol on it.

 **"Not bad at all"** Caitlin replied looking at her own key with a Frost symbol **"These are actually pretty cool"**

 **"Yep, these are pretty cool"** Barry echoed Caitlin while smiling brightly at Joe who was grinning

 **"So, did you two make a plan about when you're moving out, Barry?"** Joe asked as they were going out. Everyone was already home and it was about to get dark anyway.

 **"Not yet, to be fair, you know how little time I actually spend home nowadays. But I was thinking tomorrow, since its week end anyway"** The speedster answered

 **"Tomorrow it is then. I'm happy for you two. I'm going home. Need a ride?"** the detective asked.

 **"No, I think we'll walk"** Barry answered and Caitlin nodded. Joe waved goodbye as he took off in the car, as the two started to walk toward her apartment **"Take care, Joe"**

 ** _"Why walking?"_** she asked **" _We could speed home"_**

 ** _"I want to enjoy the sunset with the woman I love"_** Came the rather direct answer as Barry kissed her gently. She didn't object.


	24. Home

The two enjoyed their walk back to their house. The sunset was beautiful. Caitlin was taken aback by the way Barry was looking at her. He was mesmerized. The sun was framing her beautiful features so delicately and if looked from the right angle it was like she had a halo above her head. He could not believe how lucky he was. Having such a beautiful, smart, warm girlfriend. He took her hand in his as they stood on a bench near the marina looking over the water as the sun went down. It was a moment he wished could last forever and by the look on his face, Caitlin understood that as well. She was at peace. Even after all the pain, the death of her brother and the problems with her powers, the coma and every other issue she had been bottling up since she was a teenager, she was at peace and happy with her life. She thought after she woke up that her career was finished. She had been in a coma, her boss had been put in a chair for life and that same boss tried to kill them later. STAR was an outcast in the scientific community, her life as a scientist was supposed to be over. But she knew now that it had just begun. But it was not _he_ r life anymore. It was her life and his. _Their_ life.

 ** _"This is such a beautiful sunset. Almost as beautiful as the woman standing beside me"_** Barry smiled toward her.

 ** _"Hey, you aren't so bad yourself"_** she quipped.

 ** _"So, what did you think about my idea earlier?"_** he asked

 ** _"About us getting a new house? I really have nothing for or against it. It's not like we need a bigger place and we don't spend that much time at home anyway"_** She repeated her point from back in the lab.

 ** _"A bit too sudden, huh?"_** Barry thought squeezing her hand, making sure it's there.

 ** _"Nothing like that. I just don't see the point. I mean yeah, now you`re a billionaire. But I don't want any special preferences because I just happen to have a boyfriend that is also my boss"_** she smirked.

 ** _"Hey, you know it's not like that. I'm still plain old Barry Allen, even if now I have a truckload of money. Even if the deeds are in my name you`re always my partner. But I guess you do have a point. If we ever need a bigger house we can always buy one then"_** Barry's line of thought trailed off.

 ** _"I know, Barry. I was just teasing you. So what is your first order of business as owner of STAR Labs?"_** she was curious as to what he would do with the labs.

 ** _"Increase my wonderful girlfriend's paycheck and Cisco's too"_** he started to laugh as she gave him the stink eye

 ** _"Hey, what happened to special preferences?"_** she asked.

 ** _"I was thinking we can reopen STAR. But the labs don't really have a good reputation now as it is, nobody actually likes us. It's a PR disaster"_** he sighed **.**

 ** _"Well, maybe we can ask the resident reporter if she has any ideas. Wait, you weren't kidding about the raise, were you?"_** Caitlin looked at him crooked.

 ** _"Of course I wasn't. But a larger paycheck comes with larger responsibilities. I'm the owner, yes, for now. Which means you and Cisco will be executive directors, since I know I suck at management"_** He gave her a smile. Her face was frozen in shock. She did not expect what Barry just told her, she just stared at him **" _What? You said that you don't want special preferences for dating your boss, which means you, my darling, will have to work to earn your increased paycheck, by helping me manage the labs"_** he chuckled.

 ** _"Of course I'll help. I would have done so without the title and the paycheck increase anyway, you dork. You know if you need help with anything you can always count on me. But I didn't think you would have thought about this so well in such little time since you actually got the deed to the labs"_** she responded.

 ** _"This didn't come out in just a few hours. When I sat in the lab alone and watched my Flash suit sitting there I would often wonder how I would handle things if I ever got the labs and since we have seen that paper in the Gideon room, while knowing nothing on it might be true depending what we do, I started thinking about the subject more often"_** He replied

 ** _"You might be right. But we have to clear up the bad opinion that people have of the labs. And that can prove quite hard. I have no idea how to play with what the media thinks"_ **she acknowledged her own lack of skill in that particular area.

 ** _"I know we can turn STAR into a place that people are proud of to have in their city and where other people can help save lives in their own field, just like we do when we go out as Flash and Frost. People like professor Stein, given his own lab he could do so much, we could even give Ray a home away from home to continue his nanite research which already saved him from dying once like Felicity already told me, if he ever turns up that is"_** Barry had a spark in his eyes. He wanted to do good and Caitlin wanted the same. To help the people of Central and why not even the world through the research that could be done at STAR.

 ** _"We have to talk to Cisco and Bette as well. Our security is shit. We could use a bit of a private security force to keep the labs safe and who better to run that then a former war vet who can blow stuff up when she touches them. What do you mean if he ever turns up?"_** Caitlin smiled toward her boyfriend.

 ** _"I read somewhere that Ray is missing and that his company is in the dumps now. Maybe we should buy it sooner rather than later. That way we can have Felicity on the payroll in case someone tries to screw with our computer systems again"_** the Flash continued trailing his thoughts.

 ** _"Wait, you have been a billionaire for less than a few hours and you`re already thinking of buying Ray out?"_** she chuckled continuing **" _Wow, rich people do think differently. Wait, does that make me a gold-digger now?"_** she started to laugh but Barry's face was totally serious.

 ** _"You are my beautiful girlfriend who stood by me when I was dirt poor and a little CSI guy at the CCPD. You are anything but that. I love you so much, Cait. But if you want to dig gold, we can always buy a mine somewhere and see if we can strike it rich. Together of course. Then we'll both be proper gold diggers"_** Barry started to laugh at what he had just said

 ** _"Proper gold diggers. Where do you come up with that stuff, Barry Allen? I love you too, you dork. I was just kidding. But maybe you were right. We could see if we can buy stocks in Palmer Tech or maybe completely buy out the company from under Ray. Then paint his suit pink and make him wear a tutu"_** she was not able to hold her laughter back and joined the speedster

 ** _"Oh god. That would be AMAZING. Except we aren't that type of douchebags … are we?"_** Barry started to laugh even harder" ** _I have talked with the broker that Eobard was using to start to slowly covertly buy shares there under the cover of other transactions "_**

 ** _"You know I have your back with whatever you wish to do. As for the douchebag comment…I don't know, I'm not rich. But usually rich people are douchebags, Barry Allen"_** She kissed him hard

 ** _"I wouldn't know. I've literally been rich for a total of 4 hours. I need to go on a trip around the world to find my inner douchyness"_** He responded to her kiss holding her close to him. The sun was already down so they decided to go home. Looking around and seeing no one they flashed back to their apartment.

 **"It's strange you know. A few months ago we didn't have any care in the world regarding money or business. We were too busy saving the city. Having this sum of money makes you think we can do so much more. Even if Flash and Frost only take care of Central City. STAR could help the world"** Caitlin commented.

 **"Strange for me too. But you know what? I think we can do it. Together"** She nodded at his remark, then flashed out and came back again with a few pizzas for them to eat. **"I forgot to buy groceries. This was faster, we can cook something tomorrow"**

 **"It's fine"** He sat with her at the table eating until they were both almost full. Barry doing the cleaning afterwards since she had brought the food. They were both yawning heavily so they decided to go to sleep. Caitlin wanted to see what had given him those headaches earlier. Barry flashed her and himself into pajamas and they climbed into bed, with him gently holding her in his arms while her hand rested on his neck.

 **Dreamscape – Henry Allen's log cabin**

They met in the usual place, on the benches outside the cabin which had still whiteboards around. That seemed strange at first, but Barry thought that maybe Caitlin would want them. He began to extract the images from his memory and putting them up one by one.

 ** _"These images are very strange. But I can swear I saw this Jay Garrick already somewhere"_** Caitlin was trying to remember **" _Yeah. I caught someone out of the corner of my eye that was taking pictures. I don't know of who, but since you know our minds pick up almost anything because we register events at low speed, I do remember that face"_** she thought hard and managed to pull an image out of her own memories putting it next to the one that Barry shared.

 ** _"You`re right. This is the same guy. What is he doing there and … furthermore what is he taking pictures of?"_** Barry asked

 ** _"The images you have seem to indicate that the bad guy, what was his name again?"_** she asked having a momentary lapse in memory

 ** _"Zoom"_** Barry replied

 ** _"Yeah. Zoom. Seems to be the same person as this Jay Garrick. Of course this only could look like this. It could be his evil twin or something"_** Caitlin reasoned

 ** _"Or … he could be another Harrison Wells"_** he muttered and she understood exactly what he meant. **" _Also that new Harrison Wells image I got is strange. Eobard is dead and gone. There is no trace left of him. So ... who is this guy?"_**

 ** _"No idea. We do have to remember that some of these images could still be fakes. Jay Garrick hasn't even shown his face to us even though apparently he did kind of stalk us"_** Caitlin talked while looking at the images focused

 ** _"This one appears like Cisco is a metahuman. He has the ability to … see things. Do you think that he would really hide that from us? I mean he is our best friend, which would be a bit … strange"_** Barry said severely doubting that his best friend would hide something like that from us. A power that useful that could eventually help them against their enemies.

 ** _"He could be afraid of using his powers. Maybe it would be something we should talk to him about. At least to see if this is fake or true"_** Caitlin smiled at him holding his hand.

 ** _"I don't know. But best tell him out right and let him choose if he wants to tell us the truth or not. But if we do, we have to tell him about the latest batch of flashes and everything that comes with them, including his own involvement and powers. Or else he won't believe us and can just lie. Maybe he doesn't want to accept them, maybe he is afraid or just wants to keep them to himself. I have no idea"_** Barry retorted.

 ** _"These two however take the cake"_** She pointed at the images of Killer Frost and Firestorm and the ones with the two Ciscos in it.

 ** _"I wouldn't know what to tell you. Seems that the doppelganger theme is recurring around these flashes this time around. If I wouldn't know better I'd say that we are looking at ourselves in another universe where the choice we had were different. So … we turned out different"_** he managed to formulate his thoughts in a cohesive manner.

 ** _"Are you talking about parallel universes?"_** she remembered reading that in a book, or Barry, she didn't care about whose information it was since it was in her head.

 ** _"Yes. There is a theory out there that for every choice every inhabitant of a universe has, there is another universe where that choice has already been made. This in turn creates an infinite number of parallel universes. I think it was called… The multiverse theory"_** He recalled the book and put up an image of it so she could see it too.

 ** _"Yeah. I thought that was the one you were mentioning. So there could be duplicates of ours from another universe? That's a bit hard to believe, but … not like there's any cohesive information about that"_** She nodded confused.

 ** _"Rothstein said he needed Zoom to send him back home and that this was not his Earth. He was most certainly a double since we tested his DNA and they were a perfect match. Except one was a metahuman and one was not. You know as well as I do that two people to have the same DNA the possibility is … almost nonexistent"_** he articulated while pulling up the two DNA analyses.

 ** _"Yep. I know that, I'm the geneticist in this relationship"_** she quipped while he laughed at her.

 ** _"Do me a favor, if we do get this Garrick character as a guest anytime soon. Make sure that he doesn't see the powers you can use. I can only run but you have a lot of tricks up your sleeve. I would rather we have at least one element of surprise"_** Barry told her

 ** _"Yea, I think the best thing to keep to ourselves would be the paralytic fog. In case he is indeed a menace, I can just use that to slow him and you can take it from there"_** She smiled at him **" _I like this tactical thinking and planning we got going on here"_**

 ** _"Yeah. I don't want anyone to take advantage of our trust ever again. I think you felt as shitty as I did when we found out the truth about Wells. He played us and toyed with us. Never again"_** Barry said with a grim face prompting Caitlin to kiss him softly.

 ** _"With us being able to talk like this and outside, we will have the advantage. Our friends don't talk about our powers anyway and Joe, Iris and Eddie don't have the full picture"_** He replied **" _Also, you were right. We don't need a house right now. I'm fine with wherever as long as you`re there"_**

 ** _"Aren't you the romantic, Barry Allen"_** she smiled

 ** _"Nope. Just a guy that is really happy that he has found someone like you to be part of his life"_**

The next morning Caitlin felt Barry leave the bed and was a bit disappointed until she smelled the coffee coming from the kitchen. She got up and speeding all the way took a shower changed from the pajamas into some shorts and a Frost T-shirt. Barry was in the kitchen, shirtless like always. His body always managed to have … an interesting effect on her every time he saw him. Right now her heart started to race as he heard him hum a random song which she could not pinpoint and cooking something in the largest pan he could find in the house.

 **"Good morning, Cait"** He smiled at her **"Coffee's ready, just need a bit more time to finish the monster omelet I'm making"**

 **"Good morning to you, my shirtless speedster. I'm pretty sure I didn't have eggs in the freezer"** she looked at him realizing what she said and blushing and he shrugged.

 **"I might have gone to pick about a dozen of them this morning. Wanted it to be a surprise, but wouldn't you know it, food smells"** he grinned

 **"You think?"** she came from behind him and kissed his neck **"So I guess we should get ready and head over to Joe's when we're done. Do you have a lot of stuff to get?"** She asked. It didn't really matter but since he told Joe that he would officially move out and in with her, you could say that she wanted it to be over sooner rather than later.

 **"To be honest not really. Just clothes and maybe some pictures of my dad. I don't intend to take any sort of furniture. My life is in that room at Joe's. After my mother died my house died with her. As much as I love Joe… that will always be Joe's house. Just keep this between us, if you don't mind, he doesn't know I think like that and I don't want him to know. He tried his best to help me fit in and for a while I did, but that thought always lingered in the back of my mind"** he said with a sad face, something that made Caitlin want to just hold him **"Maybe it's time that I get my own home. Here. With you"** and in saying that his face turned to a gentle smile.

 **"He won't get anything from me, but you knew that already. Maybe it is indeed time"** she gave him a winning smile. It was so easy to smile when she was with him. Of all the barriers she had put up in the past for herself there were people who tried to get through them and failed. The harder they pushed, the harder she would push back. It was surprising how easy it was for Barry Allen to get through them. Maybe that was the secret, he didn't even have to try, because it was like the barriers were inexistent to him. They both got dressed and ran over to Joe's house. He opened the door with a large smile, but somehow a bit sad as well

 **"Morning, Joe"** they both greeted the detective.

 **"Morning, you two. I didn't think you`d wake up so early on a Saturday morning. I was expecting you much later"** he responded

 **"We decided to get this done quick, maybe do something on our lonesome tonight, if Cisco doesn't decide it's Star Wars movie night again"** Caitlin explained

 **"By all means"** He smiled but his face kind of betrayed the fact that he was sad.

 **"I'm going to get stuff ready. Cait, you can take a breather if you want. I'll call you if needed"** Barry said and flashed up the stairs.

 **"You`re sad he's moving out, aren't you?"** she followed Joe to the kitchen

 **"Why would you say that?"** he tried to give her a smile, but she could see the difference.

 **"I can see the sadness on your face. You might try to hide it with a smile, but I believe I have gotten to know you pretty well. You ok?"** she asked concerned. He sighed.

 **"You`re right, Caitlin. I am sad he's leaving. Iris moved and living with Eddie, now him. I don't know, this house is going to be too big for one person"** Joe sighed **"Don't get me wrong. I'm happy for you and Barry. He had so much bad stuff happen to him, it looks like life decided to give him a break when he met you. I just … I don't know. I got used to having them around and while I know kids will leave their parents' house sooner or later, I still can't help feeling sad about him moving out"** Joe sat on a chair in the kitchen

 **"I know what it means to go home to an empty house every day. Have had that for a long while even when Ronnie lived with me. We had different schedules, one left one came. It can get lonely. I'll make you a deal. If you ever feel lonely in this house call us. We can always sleep in Barry's room and keep you company"** She gave him a smile and he was surprised about the offer.

 **"Wait, are you serious?"** Joe looked at her.

 **"Yes. I wouldn't have entertained the idea if I wasn't"** She then told Barry mentally **" _Come down here for a minute will you?"_** in the next second Barry was standing right next to her.

 **"What's up?"** he asked.

 **"What do you say about leaving everything else here except the bulk of the clothes you use and maybe we can come and keep Joe company now and again. It does get lonely in such a big house when the only there is just you by your lonesome"** she smiled toward Barry

 ** _"He is going to feel alone without me here, won't he?"_** Barry asked directly

 ** _"Yes. I know what it feels like to go home to an empty house every night. Maybe we should come by now and again and keep him company. Like a family night or just drop in unannounced and surprise him"_** Caitlin responded

 **"That sounds like a wonderful idea. I'll just get the clothes then. Going to put everything else back in its place. Be right back"** Barry ran upstairs but she could still hear him **" _I never thought how Joe would feel if I move out. I thought he'd be happy to have the house for himself but I see that's not true in the slightest"_**

 **"Did… did you do what I just think you did?"** Joe could not believe the woman standing in front of him.

 **"Yes. Sure, Barry will move in with me. But that doesn't mean we can't come by and sleep in this empty large house and keep you company"** She smiled whispering **"I told you, I hated coming home to an empty house. This way, if you ever need to not be alone here, we can always pay you a visit. It's not like we can't be here in 2 seconds flat or anything"** Joe's reaction was nothing like she would expect. The large man stood up and gave her the most bone crushing hug she had ever experienced.

 **"Thank you, Caitlin"** That was all he said, but she understood everything.

 **"Don't worry Joe, it's not like I'll chain him in the bathroom and keep him locked up so that he can't visit"** She smirked and Joe started to laugh. Barry was standing in the doorway with a **" _What the hell did I just walk into_ "** face, which made Caitlin start to laugh too.

 **"Did I just inadvertently find out that my girlfriend is into kinky stuff?"** he said looking at the two, then all three of them laughed, by the time they finished, Joe's look of sadness was gone from his face as the two smiled at him

 **"Well, this box is all I need to take. The rest, I'm leaving here"** Barry smiled

 **"Wait, you didn't even take …"** he got cut off

 **"No. it's still in the same place it always was. Who knows? I might need it one day"** Barry told his foster dad.

 **"Sooner than you think, Barry. Sooner than you think"** Joe smiled at his son. He already knew that they were both whipped by the other one. Their gazes going from one to another while they talked. The quiet moments which he only thought that they spent discussing stuff in their heads, which of course he would be right thinking, because it was true, at least the majority of times.

 ** _"I'm going ahead to prepare something for the house welcome party. I'll call you"_** she smiled.

 ** _"Party? Wait what? What party you talking about?"_** he asked her

 **"Wait and see"** she smirked at him **"I'll be going ahead, Joe. Have a good day"** she smiled at him and flashed out the door.

 **"What was that about?"** Joe asked.

 **"I have no idea. What did you mean by "sooner than you think". I suspect you already knew that I was referring to my mother's ring right?"** the speedster asked him

 **"Yes, I know. What I said was true. I suspect you'll be needing it quite soon"** Joe continued **"I never asked, how far does that … mental thing go?"**

 **"You might be right. I can't say I don't agree with you, but hey, you know. As for that … the farthest we've tried was across the city. Back when we were discussing if we should tell you about us or not. I was here, she was at STAR. There have been other instances of larger distances, so I guess I could safely say across the city works just fine"** Barry smirked and looked at the floor then remembered that Caitlin took the clothes away.

 **"Still won't ever get used to that"** Joe replied

 ** _"All right, I'm done"_** Barry heard a voice **"See you. I have to go. I'm being called. Take care"** he waved as he flashed out of the house and back to their apartment **" _What did you mean by a house warming pa…"_** His mind went blank when his eyes stopped on her. With good reason because she was waiting for him in the doorway of the bedroom wearing a Black lace lingerie smirking at him. **" _Oh. So that's what you meant"_** Before he could make another step Caitlin had already dragged him in the bedroom and was kissing him passionately.

After about two hours they stopped looking at the mess they did in the room they were in. Everything was hanging from places it shouldn't have. Clothes and underwear were in the unlikeliest of places. They looked at one another and stated to laugh.

 **"How about we don't use super speed next time. Or we're going to have to clean this room every time"** He smiled looking at the beautiful woman in his arms

 **"That would make it less interesting, but … sure, we have all the time to try whatever we want"** She gave him a flirty smile. Seeing him here with her, in what was now their home, was something she never thought she would have. Somehow she always imagined herself with cats being an old lady scientist that cured cancer or something. Her stomach growled cutting in between them. A few seconds later, his started to growl too.

 **"And that would be reason two why we shouldn't be doing that at super speed"** They got up from the bed and flashed into some clothes, Barry being a bit faster ran out and brought 10 pizzas back. When he came back and put them on the counter in the kitchen he looked at her coming out of the bedroom wearing a pair of panties and one of his long shirts. Somehow seeing her like that made him want to never leave and then he realized what Joe said earlier.

They finished eating and decided to go shopping. Her fridge was empty and if they wanted to cook something it would be pointless without ingredients. The trip to the grocery store was pretty long. They decided to take a detour and go by Jitters for a cup of coffee, then stopped along the way for some donuts, then realized that it would be a good idea to grab some more T shirts. As they finally decided there would be no more stops in their schedule Barry saw a beautiful dark blue dress in the storefront of a shop. He asked Caitlin to try it on and when he saw her he bought the dress on the spot, didn't matter how much she protested. In the end they finally made it to the supermarket. After they finished grocery shopping the just decided to flash back home, walking back there would have been nicer, they did have 3 full bags of stuff.

 **"There we go. Now we have food for cooking for a whole"** then she looked at him and smiled **"two days at the rate we're eating"**

 **"You know I told you once I would like to see more of those beautiful smiles?"** Barry asked just looking at her.

 **"I remember. Back when … You helped me against my murderous alter ego. Why?"** She responded shrugging

 **"There was something that probably did not come out in the Dreamscape. Something I was thinking at the time, but didn't wish to voice it"** Barry admitted as she looked at him inquisitively **"I hoped I would be the one who would manage to make you smile more like that"** he looked a bit embarrassed when he said that but he remembered who he was talking to and straightened himself out.

 **"I already knew that. Because I thought the same at the time. But didn't really share it. To be honest I think I have been slowly falling for you each and every night you came into my world to help me cope with the loneliness of being in a coma. You had no reason to do that. And yet, you did and even more allowed me to help you in solving my own problem. That was something amazing in itself"** She went toward him and gave him a hug holding him close.

 **"I think … mine was sooner. Back in that parking lot at STAR when I was digging through the dirt to find evidence and when I looked up, you could say that when we both went into comas, I got struck by lightning, a second time " He didn't know how to express what he felt back then, but he tried, as best he could "It was the first time ever since I became a CSI that I almost didn't see a piece of evidence because my eyes were stuck on the beautiful yet cold doctor that greeted me"**

 **"Cold eh?"** she smiled

 **"Well I know you aren't cold now, that's what I thought then. Except I misinterpreted. You were being professional. To be fair, you`re pretty hot, Frost"** he smiled as they sat on the couch they began to kiss again, slowly this time. Caitlin gave him a smirk halfway from removing his shirt as she got up and walked toward the bedroom with seductive moves. Barry followed her, the door closing behind them with a thud.

He awoke in the middle of the night, the light of the moon shining on his face almost like a call to wake him. With sleepy eyes he saw the woman sleeping on his chest, her chest moving slowly and with a bright smile on her face. The light made it seem surreal, out of this world, He put his hand over her and looked at the ceiling wearing a smile. He knew it now, he was home.


	25. Birthday

Barry was excited. Caitlin's birthday was coming up. The last year she spent that day in a coma. The speedster himself didn't even have a clue that it had passed till after he saw her file at STAR. This year however he decided to make it special and considering he had all the money he could have ever wanted after Eobard left him STAR Labs, he could make plans for a perfect birthday for his beautiful girlfriend. The day however was not fortunate, since it did fall on a Monday, It didn't really matter since well, she was working for him and in the end they could always take a day off from work, he would have thought that a weekend away might have been better, but that's what he had to work with.

First of all it had to be a surprise. She could not know what was happening until it actually happened. That might have proven to be easy if the two didn't have their link. He hoped that she would not be able to pick up the fact that he was hiding something. At first glance the best cover-up that he could come up with would be a proper date. Not the usual date in which was something the two were very familiar with. He admonished himself not being able to come up with something more covert, but that would have to do.

The real issue he encountered was that he had no idea about nice locations to make everything click into place. Now that he had the money as well he turned to his good friend Oliver for advice. Making sure that he was out of the ear range of anyone in the labs he called the archer.

 **"Hey, Oliver"** The speedster greeted.

 **"Barry. To what do I owe the pleasure of the unexpected call?"** the voice asked a bit surprised

 **"I need some advice. You were rich once and total playboy to boot so ... you must have travelled to exotic locations in this country or outside of it. Something that would leave a nice memory to the person you are taking to that particular place"** Barry managed to voice.

 **"So, you want to take Caitlin out on a date and you have no idea where, considering at this time you have all the money you could ever spend and more"** Oliver snickered. He knew about the money from Eobard because he called Cisco for advice and the engineer kind of let it slide about most of what happened. Barry knew this, because Cisco had told him about his … small mishap.

 **"Actually, I want to surprise her for her birthday. The date is a smoke screen"** The speedster replied.

 **"Wow. You really don't have a clue about dating don't you. Listen here, dork. You can take her out on a date and make it all about her in one go. You don't need to use one as a smoke screen for the other. Something I recommend you doing actually since you mentioned both"** The archer told him pretty bluntly.

 **"I already knew that, Grumpy. I was planning to use the date as a cover but then I realized, just as you told me. Why not both?"** Barry half expected an arrow to materialize from the phone and hit him in the face. Of course that couldn't have happened.

 **"I thought I told you not to call me that. Anyway, I do have some places you could go to, depending on what you want to plan. Since we reached that, what IS your plan?"** the voice enquired.

 **"I was thinking either sea or snow. Somewhere out on the beach just me and her. Or just rent out a retreat somewhere in the mountains and have a weekend to ourselves, only since her birthday is on a Monday, that week end turned into Sunday and Monday"** Barry replied truthfully

 **"Well, snow is a bit scarce at this time of year. I can only think about … maybe two places that you have a high chance to catch a snowfall. Unless your plan includes her tiring herself out to participate in her birthday, which is not something that you want to happen. It would totally be a bad idea if she falls asleep from exhaustion while you sing Happy Birthday"** the archer stated quite bluntly

 **"Hmm. So few huh? I guess you are right, it's not even winter, autumn has barely started which means that snow will be hard to find. No, I don't intend to have her strain herself to actually make it snow"** Barry realized that himself.

 **"The other solution would be sand and beaches. I know of at least 30 island resorts that are amazing and also offer services that are akin to those you require. You know, two people just spending an anniversary or a birthday or a honeymoon, the type of trip that requires them to be alone and undisturbed. Most of them are really private as well which would help"** Oliver told him.

 **"Then I guess sand and beaches it is. Can you send me a list of those locations?"** Barry asked nonchalantly

 **"I can do better. I'll put you in touch with a friend of mine. Someone who actually managed all my trips back when I actually did them. He just happens to be in Central City visiting someone. So I'll call him and set up a meeting so you can sit down with him and discuss things. He does take a hefty fee for himself, but I doubt that is something that will stop you"** the archer replied.

 **"That would be awesome. I can't set this up by myself. Even if I did have the speed to run around the world, I would still have to leave Caitlin alone for at least a couple of hours. She will probably notice something is wrong by that point. When will you tell him to meet me?"** Barry acknowledged.

 **"I'll set it up for an hour after we finish talking. He'll meet you at Jitters, that way you won't draw any unneeded attention. Barry, let me ask you this, though. Are you sure you want to go full rich guy on her? I mean for some people a simple birthday party with the people she considers friends will do a lot more than spending the weekend in a luxury resort. You know her best, but I'm just asking"** Oliver made a pretty good point and had Barry in a bit of a stump.

 **"She would probably enjoy both, to be honest. But I would want to go big. I don't intend this to be a regular occurrence, you know, doing the same thing over and over again is the definition of insanity. But I would like to go all out at least once or twice and show her how much I love her"** The speedster replied after a bit of thinking.

 **"Very good. Now with that decision in mind go talk to Andre. He'll set you up with all you need. I don't have to send you the locations, he will take care of that for you as well. Including a private plane and / or anything you might need to go to and from the location you choose. He is not cheap, but he is the absolute best at what he does and he has connections all over the world"** the archer assured him that everything will go smoothly

 **"Thanks Oliver. Sorry to have disturbed you, I'm pretty new to all this rich guy stuff"** Barry told him truthfully

 **"You`re pretty new to women too. I mean you did fawn over one without saying anything for 10 years. Have you even had a girlfriend before Caitlin?"** Oliver started to laugh loudly

 **"Thanks for reminding me of how alone I was, Jackass"** the reply came and the archer started to laugh even harder. Barry realized that Oliver out of all people was teasing him. It was more than any friend, the way he acted about that stuff was comparable to a big brother making fun of his sibling rather than someone who were friends.

 **"You are most welcome, Forever Alone Speedster. Although, that doesn't really apply now since you have a girlfriend"** the archer spoke chuckling **"Considering how much time you and Caitlin spend together on a regular basis I would more than likely have to name you, the Never Alone Speedster"**

 **"That seems appropriate. To be honest that makes me the happiest man in the world"** A blunt answer almost closed Oliver's mouth.

 **"Remember. Jitters. One hour. If Andre can't make it then I'll text you with a time and location according to what his schedule is"** the archer made his point.

 **"All right. Thank you again"** Barry replied.

 **"No problem. Have fun you two"** The voice told him and Barry closed the call. He walked back to the Cortex and started to fiddle with some stuff, trying to appear like he was working.

 ** _"What are you tinkering on?"_** a voice almost startled him. He turned around and nobody was there.

 ** _"I really need to get used to this. You startled me half to death. I'm fine where you`re in the room, but random questions out of nowhere when I'm alone still get me some of the time. Where are you, Cait?"_** he asked.

 **"Right here"** he felt a familiar rush of wind and two hands were around his waist.

 **"Hey you"** He gave her a bright smile.

 **"Who were you talking on the phone with?"** she asked **"It was quite a long call and I didn't want to disturb you"**

 **"An old college buddy actually. He is in Central City and asked me if we could go out for coffee. You know, to catch up on stuff"** he lied

 **"You actually had friend in college? That's something. I was literally the nerd of my class always studying and with my head in the books"** Caitlin told him and he looked quite surprised.

 **"You mean to tell me that nobody saw how beautiful you are and how smart you are because you were a nerd? Oh well, what can is say except, more for me"** The speedster chuckled.

 **"As much as I would like to come with you. I have been having issues with my car, so I need to get that looked at"** She was serious

 **"You mean to tell me, Frost, the fastest woman in the universe at this time, needs a car to go around. Why do you ever repair that thing? You know we can get a new one like ... any time. Right?"** Barry was surprised that she was actually taking care of that old thing.

 **"I don't really need a car, per se. But that old thing is a piece of history for me you could say. It's the first thing I bought without having to ask for money from someone else. That car represents the beginning of my independence and my life away from my mother. It's a memory more than me actually using it"** She answered truthfully.

 **"Ah, I see. Then by all means. Go take care of it"** Barry smiled brightly at her. She was surprised by his reaction. She had thought that he would tell her to just forget it, leave it where it is or sell it and buy a new one. Instead she realized that after his mother died he knew the values of mementos of times long passed.

 **"I will. I'll see you after you return?"** She asked and gave him a short kiss.

 **"Most definitely. You know I can't be away from you for too much time. Well, I can, but I don't really want to"** The speedster turned then stopped **"Caitlin, would you like to go out on a date this Sunday?"** he asked quite bluntly

 **"What kind of a question is that? Of course I would love to go on a date with you. Where did you have in mind?"** She replied almost instantly

 **"I'm not sure yet, but nowhere near Central City. Actually, maybe you can help me decide where. What would you like, beach, sun and bikinis or snow, slopes and skiing"** Barry asked her flat out.

 **"You might find this odd, but while I did spend a good part of my youth in Coast City, I have never really been to the beach. I don't think I've ever worn a bikini before either. Besides, I'm cold all the time, a little heat might do me good. Last time I tried skiing… I had to spend 3 weeks in a cast, so I would rather not have a take two on that"** Caitlin answered truthfully. The two were very blunt with each other, there was no lying between them and no hidden things. They had an example of how badly that could go in Oliver. Except when someone wanted to surprise the other, but it was never more than that.

 **"All right. Sun, beach and bikinis it is"** the speedster smiled at her.

 **"Barry Allen. I am not wearing a bikini in public"** she told him sternly. He had forgotten that even if he had seen every inch of her and more, that was because they were together. In reality the beautiful doctor was very much shy and a bit insecure about her body.

 **"Duly noted. Thank you for the idea, I was sincerely at a loss to where we should go and since you`re the one that's coming with me, I thought I should ask"** Barry smiled at her brightly.

 **"I'm glad you did. While I do like snow now thanks to your shenanigans at Christmas, I would rather go somewhere warm"** she stated, blew him a kiss and got into the elevator. Barry looked at his watch and flashed out himself. The discussion with Caitlin took a while and he thought he should not be late talking to the person that Oliver had recommended. Thinking ahead, Ollie sent him a picture of the man he was supposed to meet. He entered Jitters and scanned the venue to find the man sitting at a table in a corner.

 **"Andre I presume?"** Barry offered his hand to the person who stood up and shook it.

 **"That would be me. Barry Allen?"** the person inquired.

 **"Yes. Thank you for meeting me on such short notice. Oliver Queen tells me you are the best in planning ... special events no matter where in the world they might need to be. I am in need of someone with your particular set of skills"** the speedster told him quite frankly.

 **"Mr. Queen must have told you that my services don't come cheap. Will that be a problem?"** the man spoke his mind.

 **"Not at all. At the moment, I am the actual owner of STAR Labs. I would like you keep that to yourself until we have a chance to make everything public. So you could say that the only issue that I don't have right now is money"** Barry replied bluntly

 **"I see. Very well then. Tell me what would you be interested in and I will see how I can help and what we can come up with"** Andre responded politely

 **"The premise is simple. I want a very special date with my girlfriend to celebrate her birthday. Sadly while the premise is simple, the execution is what has left me in a bind"** Barry explained to the man.

 **"That's why I'm here. Mr. Queen used to be a champion in simple premises. The executions however were always very … shall we say, elaborate"** the man snickered **"So what did you have in mind?"**

 **"Sand, beach, maybe a nice dinner with a cake. It would be preferable if the venue we stay is private. Something akin to a villa or a house. Also the beach that comes with it has to be private as well. My girlfriend is a bit shy so I would like not to cause her any sort of discomfort. Everything should be private, including the dinner. We are the sort of people that don't like to have spectators when eating, so the staff should be gone as well"** Barry told him as much as he could think of at the time.

 **"That doesn't seem complicated at all. I think I might have the perfect place. Give me a moment"** The man pulled out a laptop and was searching for something **"There we go. What about here"** he turned the laptop and showed Barry some pictures. They were of a resort somewhere in the Canary Islands **"This is a resort that is very sought after. It consists of villas all across the shore, each with its private stretch of beach and with its own staff. The view is wonderful, you can be alone, because the staff will just prepare the food you want and leave it and then you can serve your girlfriend yourself. The problem is, because it is so sought after the venue is almost always booked. When do you want the event to happen and how much will you be staying?"** The man asked.

 **"I need it for this Sunday and Monday. Two days"** Barry replied.

 **"Well it seems that you`re in luck. Another client of mine just cancelled for those exact days. I can make the reservation now if you so wish"** Andre replied.

 **"Yes do that. I suspect you know how to set up a romantic dinner and have things done for a beautiful birthday cake and maybe something special to top it off for the night?"** The speedster asked.

 **"Of course, I can give you the special pack. Unless there is something you would like specifically to be done to your design"** The man answered quite sure of himself.

 **"Surprise me. If Mr. Queen recommended you then you must know your trade very well. I'm going to leave that to your discretion"** Barry smiled **"Also I do need something bought and delivered to the villa"**

 **"What would that be?"** the question came.

 **"How good are you at buying bathing suits?"** Barry chuckled, pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it over prompting a grin from the man in front of him.

 **"Quite proficient. I do however require the measurements of the person I'm supposed to buy something for. Even though that is a bit of a surprise considering Mr. Queen never asked me for anything like that"** the answer came.

 **"That's what's on the note I just gave you. So Oliver didn't really need clothes for his dates? Why doesn't that surprise me"** the speedster chuckled.

 **"I can neither confirm nor deny that statement. I only take care of the arrangements, not of anything else"** the man said with a professional, but comical tone.

 **"I also need you to get this for me and have it delivered to the villa. I cannot carry this around with me since she might find it and I don't want to spoil the surprise"** Barry showed him a picture of a jewel. It was a simple necklace with a ruby heart in the middle of it. Something he had his eye on for a while, but never managed to put money aside for. Now that he had all the money he could ever want, that jewel is the first thing he wanted for Caitlin.

 **"That doesn't seem so hard to procure. Of course, with the money in hand I mean"** Andre assured him **"Will you be requiring transport?"**

 **"Yes. While we can make it to the airport here and back on our own. We would need a private jet chartered and transportation to and from the villa while we are there"** The speedster replied.

 **"I can always order you a limo to take you to the airport if you so need"** the man said seriously.

 **"That won't be necessary. We can handle that ourselves. Besides we enjoy walking"** the answer came.

 **"Very well. So let me make some calculations and tell you how much this is going to cost. The moment I have the money I'm going to start preparing everything"** Andre replied

 **"I would like you to plan ahead for the fact that we would like to be at the beach Sunday around noon, so take into account the air travel time and everything else and we do need to be back in town by Tuesday morning as well"** Barry thought he should mention so the man could have every piece of information required. He ordered two more coffees and waited for Andre to finish his summary of the expenses.

 **"All right. Everything that you wanted me to plan for: the plane ride back and forth, the car ride back and forth, two days of renting the cabin with the special romantic dinner package, birthday package, payment for the staff, aerial permits and the likes, without my fee, amounts to this"** Andre showed him a number. Barry took point of everything but asked himself what the aerial permits were for. He let it go, he thought it was part of the special package for the dinner.

 **"That's fine. Just out of curiosity, what is actually your fee?"** Barry asked nonchalantly

 **"150k dollars"** The man said without much discussion **"I suspect I don't have to ask that the number I just told you should be kept private"**

 **"Of course. Send me the account where you want the money to be transferred"** Barry told him. In the back of his mind he was wondering why the man would keep the price secret. It could be something that simple as trade secret or maybe so that he could charge some people more and some people less. He shrugged it off, Oliver did recommend the guy so that had to account for something. The man showed him a numbered account on his phone. Barry logged into one of the banks that held the numbered accounts which belonged to Eobard and transferred the money instantly **"If everything goes all right and we love how it turns out, well she loves it more than me, since it's her birthday, I will send you your fee again, in the same account Tuesday morning. Be sure to check that"**

 **"That is highly irregular, my fee is quite large and not many people would actually pay it twice, no matter how well everything goes"** Andre told the speedster visibly surprised.

 **"As long as you do a good job and she enjoys herself. I see no problem of giving you a bonus for a job well done. I do like to reward people that are good at what they do. I don't think that will be a problem"** Barry said pretty bluntly.

 **"No it wouldn't. Thank you, Mr. Allen. I'm going to get to work preparing your outing. As soon as I arrange everything you will receive a message with the schedule and everything that comes with it. Expect it by Saturday afternoon. What color do you want the swimsuits to be?"** Andre assured the man. He stood up and extended an arm which Barry shook.

 **"Black. Thank you for taking the time to meet with me. Will be looking forward to see what you arrange"** the speedster was excited so see what would happen.

 **"One last thing. I have already put the "birthday package" in with the dinner. I do require however the name of the person who's birthday it is"** Andre told him quite bluntly **"I can't arrange what I'm thinking of without that"**

 **"Her name is Caitlin Snow"** Barry replied **.** The two separated and Barry flashed back to STAR Labs. Caitlin hadn't arrived yet from the shop, but he was greeted with a very eager face by Bette and Cisco.

 **"Dude, Caitlin's birthday is coming up. Shouldn't we ... you know... do something?"** the engineer asked.

 **"I already have that covered. If you want to throw her a little party or something I'm all in favor, only it will have to be done after. We are not going to be here on that day"** Barry didn't want to reveal too much about his plans.

 **"What do you mean, you won't be here on that day?"** Bette asked with a surprised face.

 **"I'm taking her out. Well ... out of the country, that is. Since we rarely had a proper date since we became a couple, I thought we could combine the two occasions"** The speedster told them **"Not a word out of you. I want this to be a complete surprise for her"**

 **"You won't hear a peep out of us. Where are you going anyway?"** Cisco asked with a gleeful smile.

 **"On an island. That's all I'm going to reveal on the subject. She wanted some beach and sun, that's what she is going to get"** Barry replied sternly. They head the sound of Caitlin walking through the halls and stopped the discussion all together, separating and going their own ways. Cisco went back to his lab with Bette and Barry went to the Cortex. After a little while, she came in.

 **"Oh, you`re here. I thought it would take way longer than my car repair"** She spoke with a smile, but Barry could feel something was wrong.

 **"You mean your botched car repair, don't you?"** he told her

 **"How did you know?"** she asked very surprised.

 **"I can feel the sadness coming off you. Since I doubt you have seasonal depression, the next thing that came to mind was that the people you sent your car to didn't manage to fix it"** the speedster replied

 **"You`re right. The engine block is completely shot. The time that it spent gathering dust in the heat in front of the precinct has done a number on it. It was already old as it began. They told me flat out that the only way to fix it is to replace it completely. Which would cost more than the car's actual value at this time. Which is a bummer"** She told him with a frown.

 **"Wait. You`re telling me that you didn't really have it fixed because of … money?"** Barry looked at her with a quizzical smile.

 **"Well, yeah. I thought you might be right. Maybe it's time that I let it go and just buy another car"** She told him.

 **"Hell no. You told me yourself what that car means to you. No way am I letting you give that up because of money. You get your ass back there and tell them to fix it. I don't give a rat's tail. Go put a race car engine in it if you want. Rebuild it from scratch, but get your car fixed. Money is not an issue. I'm a freaking billionaire. What use I have for all the money in the bank if I can't pay to fix my girlfriend's favorite car? Come on, are you even serious right now?"** Barry told her with a bit of indignation, but his voice was authoritative and kind.

 **"Ok"** That's all she managed to utter. She looked at him almost crying. It was surprising how he could make her keep the car after she decided to let it go, yes she was sad, but she came face to face with the fact that her car was dead. Of course the realization and the decision came with sadness. That was indeed a memory for her and he here was, telling her with the most demanding voice she had ever heard that he won't stand for that. The whole thing made her love him just that bit more. She came over to him and kissed his lips while he hugged her **"Thank you"** She didn't say anything more than that, it wasn't necessary **"I'm going to go back on Monday and talk to the people to get it fixed"**

 **"Good. That's what I wanted to hear"** He smiled brightly and his stomach started to grumble. She smiled.

 **"I'm going to go get us some food. Be right back"** she gave him a beautiful smile and flashed out. Barry took this opportunity to flash down to Cisco's lab. He and Bette were still there.

 **"Since you want to help with Caitlin's birthday. I have a job for you"** the speedster told them.

 **"What would that be?"** Bette asked.

 **"You know Caitlin has a car, right?"** the two nodded **"Ever since she became Frost she rarely uses it"**

 **"I know that car. It has a lot of sentimental value for our doctor. Something about representing independence and freedom from her mother. She told me that once in a random conversation. Too bad I have a good memory"** Cisco smiled

 **"Yes. The thing is that car has now broken down. This is what I need you to do. We will be gone Sunday and a good part of Monday, if not all of it. I want you two to take her car and fix it up. You`re an engineer Cisco, make sure she would have anything tech related in her car she would ever need. I hear that the engine is destroyed, Replace it. You can even turn that little thing into a race car with 500 HP if there is enough space between the wheels for you to put in such a monster. I don't care what you do as long as it runs. Can you two take care of that for me?"** Barry asked them.

 **"You bet. It can be our little birthday present for Caitlin. All we need to get are the keys"** Barry held up a set **"And the money to fix it"** the engineer said

 **"I might have pickpocketed Caitlin to get these"** The two looked at each other and started to laugh **"Let's hope that she doesn't realize they are gone. As for the money, use one of the accounts of the labs. There should be enough cash there to buy a plane, fixing a car shouldn't be a problem"** the speedster told them.

 **"Ok, we can start taking care of that right away, if you don't need us here. The sooner we get to work on it the faster it will be ready"** Bette replied.

 **"Go, if she asks where you went I'll just tell her I gave you free time to go on a date. Just so we keep our stories straight"** Barry smiled making the two blush profusely. They said nothing however, nodded their heads in agreement and left. He got back to the Cortex just in time to welcome Caitlin who had bought a lot of food.

 **"I saw Cisco and Bette walk out. Did you send them somewhere?"** she looked at him with a quizzical look.

 **"Me? No. They were planning to go on a date so I just told them to take the afternoon off and get ready for it"** Barry lied.

 **"Aww, a compassionate boss that hears the pleas of his employees. Aren't you sweet. What happened to all rich people are jerks?"** she smirked and started to spread the food out on a table.

 **"For real, Cait? I have never acted like a boss toward anyone. Don't even know if I can act like one. Nothing happened with rich people are jerks, I'm just not one of them"** Barry cringed

 **"I know, you dork. Just pulling your chain. You would probably strain yourself to try to be the same type of a jerk that the usual rich people are"** she smiled and sat down. Barry flashed next to her and they started eating. They spent the rest of the day trying to figure out if they could maybe use the nanites from Ray's research, of which they still had one small dose left from the battle with Eobard, to use them for microscopic evidence gathering. Something that would have been extremely useful to them as CSI's.

The next day was Saturday. As per promise Andre had sent the schedule of their date over before noon. They had a plane to catch at midnight that night. The flight took somewhere around 10 hours and another hour from the airport to the villa that Barry had chosen. He was checking his phone pretty intently and Caitlin picked up on that.

 **"What are you looking at with such interest?"** she smiled

 **"Oh, sorry. It's the schedule for the plane and the cars and what we have to keep to get where we need to go for our date"** he told her nonchalantly.

 **"Planes? Cars? Why would we need those? Can you run that by me again?"** she looked at him with wide eyes.

 **"I did say that we weren't going anywhere near Central City. Or did that slip your mind?"** Barry smiled at her.

 **"No it didn't, I just didn't think that you were serious. You were, weren't you?"** she barely managed to hold in a smile.

 **"Deadly serious. We have been all over Central City. Well, except maybe the venues that the snobs frequent. I thought it might be a nice change of pace. We have a plane that leaves at midnight tonight"** He told her with a serious tone.

 **"I see. Should I even ask where we're going?"** She looked at him with a smile.

 **"Sun, beach, warmth and bikinis. That's all you are going to get out of me at the moment"** The speedster smiled. She saw his face and understood that no matter how much she would try he would not fork over more details than he already had. So she decided to just let it go for now. The rest of the day she was excited as Barry had never seen her. He made a mental note of not revealing anything so that she didn't get the idea that her birthday would be included in the mix. Barry would have thought that she had caught on that her car keys were missing, but apparently the fact that she was so excited for their date made her completely forget about them. The speedster thanked the stars that she didn't catch on. The time was approaching and as it turned dark outside Frost realized something.

 **"If the flight is at midnight, that means we don't get to sleep?"** Caitlin asked

 **"No worries. The plane has a bedroom section where we can sleep without a problem"** The reply came instantly

 **"Wait, since when commercial airplanes have bedrooms?"** the chestnut haired woman inquired looking at him with a rather peculiar stare.

 **"Oh, did I forget to mention? We're not going in a commercial airplane. I rented our own private jet. I thought it would be nice since now I'm practically well ... rich"** he gave her a winning smile. Her face simply fell. Barry Allen was playing the rich guy card. She looked at him rather crooked **"What? Don't look at me like that. Doesn't mean we'll be doing this all day every day. I just wanted to see how it would feel like to go somewhere and have fun without having any care about how much it costs"** She realized that him as much as her didn't come from money. Of course that would be something that he would do when he struck it big and she was going along for the ride, something she didn't mind at all.

 **"Nothing, I just didn't think Barry Allen could think like a rich guy"** She snickered.

 **"I don't, at least I'm not when having to plan for a date. You have no idea how hard this was to think up. Every step of the way I was thinking, I wonder how much this costs, wouldn't this be cheaper. You know, 1st world not rich people issues"** He cringed.

 **"Doesn't matter. I hope you know that wherever we go on a date, even if it's in a forest at the outskirts of the city, with a blanket and a barbecue, I don't really care if you`re with me and we have fun"** She told him with a serious face.

 **"I know, Cait. I just thought, why not try this rich people gag at least a couple of times. Who knows we might actually get used to it"** He replied making her smile. The couple put some clothes in a suitcase and sped over to the airport after killing some time as they usually did Saturday night. The plane was a normal jet, not too large but not too small, inside there was a small living area with TV, a computer, some wine and glasses and the likes at the back there was a door which led to a large bed which occupied almost all of the space. The two decided to make use of the bed and get some rest while they flew to their destination.

The next day at 8 AM, they landed and both got into a car that was waiting for them. The view was beautiful, Caitlin could make out from the air that they were on an island. After about 3 hours, being delayed due to some road work that was being done they reached the villa that Barry had rented through Andre. Caitlin was stunned. The venue was beautiful and way out of the way for anyone. It had two levels, the front was large and open, with a garage that would probably house a car, the roundabout in front of it had in the middle a large circle filled with flowers and there were palm trees all the way to the house along the road. The driver left and the two managed to go into the house where a set of black bathing suits were waiting for them.

 **"Barry, didn't I tell you I'm not going to wear a bikini in public?"** Caitlin smirked.

 **"Yes, but how about just only for me?"** the speedster put their bags in the room upstairs and flashed into his own bathing suit.

 **"What do you mean? Of course, I'd wear it only for you, but ... we aren't alone… are we?"** Caitlin asked him seriously. She still had no idea what he did.

 **"Actually, yes we are. This villa comes with its own private strip of beach. About 2 miles of it actually in both ways. So in effect, if you`re going to wear that, you are wearing it just for me"** Barry grinned.

 **"Are you serious right now? You rent a private plane and now a villa with its own private beach. You`re really trying hard to spoil me aren't you?"** she laughed.

 **"Not only you, but myself as well. I still remember when I went to the beach with my folks. It was so crowded that I didn't even have space to build a sand castle. This is payback for that time. Now we can do whatever we want"** he replied. Caitlin sped into her bathing suit and put the rest of her clothes in the upper room. Barry smirked, but in reality he was gawking at how beautiful she looked in the bikini she had just put on **"Whoever says Caitlin Snow isn't beautiful wearing that must have his eyes examined"**

 **"Shut up, you charmer. Thank you"** she grinned at him, but his compliment was not lost on her. She was blushing profusely and her face showed that. The two went outside to what was the backyard. There was a pool with places to stay, to the right there was a small gazebo between some trees that were obviously not from there but have been planted and taken care of to grow as they did. A bit further of the pool a large stretch of beach and the ocean was in front of them. Caitlin was enthralled by the beauty of the spot Barry had chosen. The azure sea and the sand made a strong contrast just themselves, but with the green of the trees and the red and yellow of the flowers that were put in planters all around the space, it was absolutely breathtaking.

 **"So, beach chairs or blanket?"** he asked.

 **"Blanket. Unless they have a beach chair for two. I came here to be close to the person I love, not stay on two different chair and look at each other"** she replied with a smirk. The two spent the better part of the day just lounging around in the sun and kissing, a few times that almost went too far, but they realized that it was better not to do anything since they were still outside, even though they were on a private stretch of beach, there were still helicopters flying overhead from time to time. Barry flashed to the house in the early afternoon and brought in 20 pizzas to quench their hunger and a bottle and two glasses of wine. After the couple ate the food they just sat down, Caitlin with her head on Barry's shoulder, him with his hand around her waist and each with a glass of wine in their free hand.

 **"You know, this is perfect. No metahumans, no emergencies, no crazy speedsters, no bank robberies. Just you, me, the sand and the sea"** Caitlin commented making an inadvertent rhyme to Barry which smirked

 **"I did ask you where you would want to go. I know we don't get out much with all the superhero stuff and the work at the CCPD and now we have to manage STAR as well. But at least once in a while, we can just enjoy life and being alone with each other in places like this. Can't we?"** Barry spoke softly to his girlfriend.

 **"Yes we can. I love being with you, Barry. Spending time together, I think I got the taste of never being alone anymore. The way I used to feel before, like I had nothing in the world and nobody would give a damn about me is something that I think I will never feel again in my life as long as you are with me"** she smiled sweetly at him taking a sip of wine.

 **"You aren't the only one. I might have called this anything else. An outing, a trip I chose to call it a date. Maybe that was very inspired since us just lounging around not doing anything doesn't really classify as a date per se. But to be honest, I don't really think I care. Spending time with you alone away from everything is all that I wanted"** The speedster told his girlfriend who was looking at him with sweet eyes.

 **"It's very much a date. With Pizza and Wine. Come on, our dates were mostly at home cooking together. Of course you can call this a date"** She smiled brightly. The couple finished the bottle of wine, which of course had no other effect on them except making them want to go to the bathroom, and took a long swim together. Of course neither of them could actually swim, that's why they sat on the shallow side of the beach just floating. Barry thought it would be cool to try to play Jesus by vibrating his legs and trying to walk on water. Of course that didn't work, furthermore his stunt instantly wet Caitlin from head to foot. She decided to take revenge and threw a torrent of water at him with her speed. It all degenerated into an all-out speedster battle with water spouts and cannons. The two were having the time of their lives, their faces were all a smile and they could feel the happiness that came off one another only to boost their own feelings.

At sunset the two decided to take a long walk on the beach frequently interrupted by a lot of kissing. Barry knew that he had to get her away from the house for a bit while the staff would get the romantic dinner ready. Caitlin realized something was up and simply asked. She knew that he had no reason to lie.

 **"So is there any reason we're straying so far from the house on our walk?"** She inquired sheepishly.

 **"Of course there is. The staff has to prepare the romantic dinner for us. Come on, Cait. No date is ever complete without a romantic dinner"** He looked at her and grinned.

 **"Aha! That's what you were hiding, you devil"** She smiled and gave him a long kiss. **"So? How long do we have to walk around?"** then she realized **"A romantic dinner? But I didn't really take anything to wear from home"** and pouted.

 **"I don't really care what you wear. That bikini looks really good so why not wear that then. It doesn't matter, you could wear nothing and you would still be the sexiest woman alive for me. I think I don't say that enough. So there you go"** The speedster had never been that subtle and she understood what he was saying. A romantic dinner between them could be anything from eating lasagna in front of the TV in their pajamas to going full out snob mode and go to a restaurant. She didn't really care, much like him actually. All that mattered would be that they were together. She did however blush hard at his obvious compliment. She had never felt sexy or enticing or anything of the sort. Until she met Barry Allen that is. His gazes after the two have gotten together gave her butterflies in places she didn't know she could have them in until then. She liked that, he made her feel wanted, beautiful, sexy and loved all at the same time.

 **"You`re right. We should go back though. I think we have given them enough time to settle the preparations"** she offered and Barry nodded. As they returned both their faces froze. From the edge of the pool all the way to the small gazebo between the trees there was a trail of rose petals coupled with candles that were marking the path. When they arrived at the gazebo the sight amazed them even further. On the trees simple paper lanterns were hung that swayed in the gentle breeze. The light from them came down almost like a mirage.

Inside the gazebo was already set up a dinner for two people complete with wine, even more candles on the sides that gave the place an aspect of fantasy. The plates were already set with a note that Barry picked up _"All 35 courses of food are in the kitchen and have been freshly prepared. Enjoy"_ he smiled and put it away somewhere. Caitlin was still gawking at the beauty of the setup as he took her hand and invited her to sit.

 **"Barry this is stunning. What did you tell these guys? Make something that she won't forget until she dies?"** Caitlin put it very bluntly

 **"Not in so many words, but I did mention that this should be something to be remembered for a very long time. I also ordered 35 courses of food because we both eat like beached land whales"** Barry smiled at her warmly.

 **"Wait, but where are the people? I have never seen anyone around. When did all that food get done?"** she asked.

 **"Why do you think we didn't really spend time in the house? I had to give them time to prepare everything. Besides we didn't really come here to spend time indoors. Although that is one of my favorite pass times when we're together"** The speedster smirked.

 **"Not just yours. So you really did think of everything, huh?"** she was impressed by the amount of attention to details that he had put into this.

 **"Neither you or me like eating with people around, precisely because we eat so much. We can only take so many stares after we've finished our 10th extra-large pizza. So I got rid of the people. That's why I told them to leave us alone to have our dinner. No need for waiters, cooks and the likes. I didn't want anything to ruin this for us. I wanted it to be perfect"** Barry spoke with a soft tone.

 **"So who brings the food?"** she chuckled

 **"Barry Allen, waiter extraordinaire, at your service, madam"** he stood up and took a bow and Caitlin started to laugh heartily at his joke. He ran into the kitchen and saw that the staff had put numbers under the platters in the order that the courses should be eaten. He thanked them mentally since he had no clue whatsoever which tied into what and got the first dish putting it on the table and sitting down himself.

The couple took their time in eating, because of the jet lag it was well after midnight till they finished. They talked and kissed and just took breaks between courses. He looked at the watch pretty carefully not letting it be observed by her.

 **"There is one final course to this. I'm going to go get it. Be a good girl and wait here"** Barry smirked at her.

 **"All right, Mr. Waiter extraordinaire. I'll be your good girl, for now"** she smiled. Barry went into the house and Read the other notes. Andre had done a splendid job so far. Now the question was what he had in mind for the actual happy birthday cake. He read the instructions and took a small remote that was placed on the table. The only thing about that remote that was written was _"push for happy birthday"_ with a smiley face. He looked intrigued at the small square thing and took it with him. He took the cake with all the candles and walked outside. Caitlin saw him and saw the cake and her face fell.

 **"I might have been lying a bit about this being an ordinary date. I thought it would be a good opportunity for you to celebrate your birthday as well. Since last year you were basically in a coma and the last thing you cared about was the day you were born"** Barry smiled and started to sing happy birthday to her in his usual sweet beautiful voice as he came closer to the table and put the cake on it. On the cake there was an intricate design of two hearts which had not been damaged by the candles and a large happy birthday written along with her name. Caitlin was crying. She had been from the moment she saw the cake.

After the short but customary happy birthday song Barry decided to risk it and press the button that he was provided. As he did, from the other side of the yard things started launching into the air. He only now noticed the fact that there were some things that looked like firework launchers put in a line. It didn't take long for him to realize why Andre needed an Aerial permit. For a good minute, the sky was lit up with a simple message. _"Happy Birthday, Caitlin Snow"_ He looked at that flabbergasted. Oliver was right, the man knew how to impress. The precision required for something to be written so clearly in the night sky with fireworks was mind boggling. While he was amazed by the precision, she froze, for the time the message was written on the night sky she could not utter a word, the only things that were running were her tears.

 **"Happy birthday, beautiful"** he smiled at her with one of his patented goofy smiles. She was at a loss for words. She could feel she wanted to talk but everything was stuck in her throat. She had to clear it a few times to be able to speak.

 **"But how? Nobody knows my birthday besides Cisco"** she talked

 **"Yeah, that's not entirely true. Now that I'm the owner of STAR, I have full access to the employee files. Like I said, this wasn't supposed to have been a normal date, from the get go. I wanted us to celebrate your birthday, but I thought why not do both since we were already coming here"** Barry said in his sweet voice.

 **"Barry, what you did for me, all of this. It was breathtaking. I can't believe you wrote my name across the night sky. For my birthday. I … I have no words for tonight"** She tried to explain what she felt, but it was pretty clear she didn't have to. Barry was feeling everything come off her. He pushed a small box on the table toward her.

 **"A small birthday gift. From me, to you"** He smiled and she opened the box. Again her face fell. **"Call it a different rendition of, last birthday I gave you my heart. Well you could say that, since you have been on my mind well before your last birthday. I just thought I would make it a bit more … tangible this time. Something that you could see, touch and wear whenever you like. I love you, my sweet, amazing, beautiful Cait"**

 **"This is beautiful. I love you, Barry and I love the gift as well"** she spoke while her tears still ran down her face while looking at the box **"An actual heart, should I look now for a key?"** she tried to joke through the tears.

 **"No? Does that look like a locket to you? You already have the key, no need to look for something like that, you have it on you at all times, my wonderful one, it's your smile"** Barry joked at her, but the last part of what he said left her stunned. The key to his heart was her smile. She got up and he put the necklace around her neck. She didn't think twice about turning around and kissing him hard. While that lasted for a bit, soon his phone started to rang. She wiped her tears and the two answered the video call from Cisco.

 **"Hey Cisco, What's up? Didn't I mention we would be going away and not to call us even if the city is burning?"** Barry replied a bit stern

 **"Oh there's no emergency. Since I thought you might be suffering from jet lag and be awake at this hour, I thought I'd call to say happy birthday to Caitlin, since it's already past midnight over there"** the engineer smiled. **"Also, I thought we would give her our own birthday present, even if she won't be able to use it until you two get home"** he turned the camera toward the parking lot where Bette was doing stunts, with her car. Caitlin was struck mute. After a few more circles and some nice driving Bette stopped and came into view as Cisco appeared as well.

 **"We thought you might want to drive your car when you come back, even if you do it just for fun between running around at supersonic speeds"** Bette replied with a large smile on her face.

 **"How did you two…"** she didn't finish her sentence and saw Barry smirk **"You did this! But where did those two get my keys?"** she mock hit his arm but her face said everything

 **"I might have pickpocketed them out of your purse when you weren't looking"** Barry looked away in a comical manner and started to whistle.

 **"Since you were going away, we decided to get this done. Call it our birthday present to you"** Bette smiled. Caitlin looked at Barry who had an innocent face on

 **"Thank you so much. I wanted to go myself, but this happened. I didn't really think you guys would take the time to do this for me"** Caitlin said almost crying

 **"Oh, we didn't just fix it. We put a few … extras in it"** Bette grinned.

 **"What extras?"** Caitlin looked at her strangely

 **"Well, Barry said he didn't care if we put a race car engine in your car so … we did"** The engineer smirked

 **"Say what now? You put a race engine in my car?"** Caitlin was a loss for words

 **"Well not an actual GT engine, because the car is rather small, but let's just say we added some STAR Labs brand improvements to it. You'll see when you get back here"** Bette added. **"Also good work Barry with that birthday present. That heart is big enough to see on my phone"** she chuckled

 **"That's enough for now. Happy birthday, Caitlin. We're going to leave you two lovebirds alone. Have a nice night and we'll see you when you return"** Cisco smiled and closed the call

 **"You put them up to this didn't you?"** the doctor smiled brightly at Barry

 **"Nope. I only had to mention that it needed to be done. They both jumped at the chance to give you their own small birthday present"** The speedster replied casually. **"I don't know why you`re so surprised, Cisco is your best friend and Bette is closer to us than most of all others. Of course they would do that for you and be extremely happy when doing it too"**

She realized that he was right. She was no longer alone. She had him, Cisco and Bette. She had known this ever since she came out of her coma. Something at which end the guy in front of her with a goofy smile on her face was waiting. It was one of the things that she didn't think about it at the time, but he was always there. Barry started to cut the cake and even with the mountain of food they had before, the two speedsters finished it after a little while. The couple kissed for a long while in the light of the moon. The scenery became even more beautiful when the lanterns had gone out. It was like they were alone in the world, just the two of them with nothing else. They both enjoyed that feeling immensely. As they became more passionate in their obvious snogging Caitlin got up and removed the top part of her bikini and handed it to Barry who looked at her and got up himself.

 **"What's this for?"** He uttered.

 **"That's one part of your tip, Mr. Waiter Extraordinaire"** She chuckled **"How about you come and collect the second"** She grinned and flashed in the house. Barry was dumbstruck at the obvious innuendo, but took less than a second to follow her into the large bedroom that was on the second floor of the house. There, everything restarted with an ever increasing passion and need as the moon was passing overhead.

The next morning Caitlin woke up to see Barry's green eyes watching her. She had felt him move earlier, but after all the exercise last night she felt a bit lazy to even open her eyes.

 **"Good morning, Cait. Happy Birthday"** He planted a long soft kiss on her lips.

 **"Good morning, Barry. I have to say you've outdone yourself. I sincerely had no expectations about this particular day. I have always regarded it as ordinary from that point of view, sometimes even worse because it marked the passing of another year and the inevitability of getting close to death. You blew those out of the water completely. This was, by far, the best birthday I've ever had. Night time was just as good as the day. Something I didn't really get to say before you came into my life"** She opened her eyes chuckling.

 **"Cait, you have told me before how everything went. I just wanted to offer you something that you would remember. You deserve the best I can give you and more. You are the woman I love. I thought a little light in your life on your birthday might remind you of that"** Barry smiled at her and gave her another kiss.

 **"I love you, Barry. But you already knew that. Thank you for a wonderful birthday "date""** She used air quotes as she got out of bed. The fact that she had nothing on didn't bother her in the slightest **"Join me for a shower? I can't believe how badly we started to sweat last night. I don't even do that, I'm always cold even in the hottest of places because of my powers. And yet, you managed to make me sweat. That is something you should feel proud about, mister"** She started to move lasciviously toward the shower with Barry following her.

 **"Well then I would consider that a win and a testament to how good the "night time", as you so eloquently put it, was. About the feeling proud part, you could say that, or you could not, because it was a night for us, not just for you and for me. To be fair, however, there has always been us. I think it stopped being you and me ever since we discovered what we feel for each other"** He laughed and the two got into the shower cabin. The thing is Caitlin wasn't really in the mood for an actual shower, as the speedster soon found out. Barry checked the watch, they still had at least 5 hours' time until they had to leave, so they decided to put it to good use.


	26. Emergence

First of all, thank you for all the follows and reviews. Since the people that have an account and i can private message them, i've already done so. It's about time i answer to the guest reviews i've been missing

to Guest : You have to remember that Bette is still a side character. I only include her when there is something specific that she is needed for or if i want some actual character development for her. Including her just for the purpose of being there, i dunno feels a bit ... forced, if you know what i mean

to Lily : its still in process. depending on how much time and how my other projects let me write, 1-3 chapters a week.

to Artemis : I am sorry, you will have to remain with that doubt in my mind for now. I would be lying if i said i don't know who she is, but ... as a certain blonde with a tardis covered diary says ... SPOILERS :P

Hope you enjoy the new chapters.

* * *

Caitlin and Barry were at the labs, they were trying to ascertain if what they had talked about the last few weeks was viable. The broker that Barry contacted had already begun covertly buying shares and he received a mail that there were no more shares to buy at the moment. Barry, under the cover of the STAR brand, had acquired almost 78% of Palmer Tech at quite a low price. Something that was possible because Ray was gone and the Vice President, which they had found out in the meantime that the position was filled by Felicity, had not been made aware that the board was trying to sell the company for grabs to make some money. Barry had an idea and called his broker almost immediately. Caitlin still had no idea why, but she trusted him. After he had finished with his call, they called Iris in as well to talk to her about STAR.

 **"Hey, you two. What's the rush?"** she asked entering the cortex.

 **"Good morning. We'd actually like your opinion on something"** Barry started. Iris was a bit confused, he had never asked her any sort of opinions about anything ever since they had their run in back at the west residence. If anything, he was more cold than usual, however she was still thankful to him for saving her relationship with Eddie, so she decided to see what was going on.

 **"We want to reopen STAR. But right now, everything is stuck in the limbo of a PR disaster, because of what Wells did. Do you have any ideas on how we might rectify that?"** Caitlin continued.

 **"Well, now the media opinion of STAR is pretty much in the dumps. I think we can fix that over time, but aren't there other issues to fix beside that?"** Iris asked

 **"We do have a lot of bans from the oversight boards higher up. We have been classified a Level 4 hazardous location and we don't have a license to do research anymore. But we might know someone in the government who can help. If she's willing"** Barry responded and both women looked at him with an inquiring look. **"Oh, you know, Cait. Lyla?"**

 **"Oh. I keep forgetting that we know someone in the higher up chains of the government. She might be able indeed to put in a good word. We'll have to talk to her about that"** She absentmindedly responded looking over some capital figures for Palmer Tech

 **"So that leaves the PR nightmare. Think you can handle it?"** Barry asked Iris.

 **"I don't see why not. All we need to do is distance Wells from the STAR brand and tell them that they have new management. After that, all you do here will probably speak for itself"** she said putting it simply

 **"Good. You`re hired then"** Caitlin smiled

 **"Huh?"** Iris looked crooked at her not understanding what she meant

 **"What's not clear about that? STAR will need a media person. Someone who knows the trade and is not an awkward scientist or a nerdy CSI. So … you`re it"** the doctor replied

 **"But, I already have a job. I'm a reporter"** Iris responded

 **"Being the PR person for STAR is not a full time job. It's more something related to what we put out Image fixing and press stories. The odd press conference now and again. You don't have to resign as a reporter, besides, now that you`re part of the team, you`re here after work just like Barry is"** Caitlin retorted

 **"So, you`re offering a part time job?"**

 **"Pretty much. If you think you`re up to it that is"** Barry replied.

 **"Oh boy. This will be interesting, having Barry as my boss"** she muttered

 **"How do you think I feel actually dating my boss"** Caitlin smirked.

 **"I'll do it. I know I can fix the Labs' image. And why not, maybe other people will like to come work here as well"** She smiled.

 **"Like I said earlier. Good. You`re hired"** Caitlin extended a hand which Iris shook **"I'll call the others and tell them to come here to talk"**

Later that day everyone managed to come to the labs after their respective work days. Cisco was already there. Bette was with him like always. The two had grown close after the bee incident, even if Cisco sometimes said stupid things, she did like the man. Something about his demeanor and his smile that captured her eyes, Barry and Caitlin already knew that they were dating on the side as well. Stein and Clarissa were present. Iris and Eddie showed up as well as Joe.

 **"What's up?"** the detective asked seeing everyone gathered

 **"We were thinking last night and we decided to reopen STAR"** Barry said bluntly.

 **"Bar, STAR is everyone's black sheep right now after the particle accelerator explosion. How are you going to fix that?"** Joe asked

 **"That is a Job for our new PR and Media relations person"** Caitlin smiled pointing at Iris.

 **"That is wonderful news"** Professor Stein told the group

 **"Which brings us to you, Professor. Since you have been gone for a while, I do suspect you have been let go from your old job. Which is why I suggest you talk to our Executive Director and she can arrange for a place for you here. Your own lab with funding for whatever you think would help the people of this city. Clarissa can join you as well"** Barry told him

 **"And, who am I supposed to be talking to? I would want to come back to my own lab and have a proper job"** Stein asked.

 **"Me, Dr. Stein"** Caitlin smiled **"But I doubt you'll need to do much talking. I'm having the employment papers drawn up tomorrow. For you at least. Clarissa?"** She asked looking at Stein's wife.

 **"Yes. I would like that. Sharing a lab with Martin would be something beneficial for the two of us"** She replied

 **"Good, then I'll make two sets"** Caitlin answered.

 **"Which comes to our next problem. People have been barging in this laboratory way too easily over the last few months. We need security upgrades and maybe a private task force of people that we can trust to protect the premises. I suggest our new Security Chief talk to her Executive Director and get that sorted"** Barry smirked at Bette.

 **"Wait, what? Me?"** She glanced at Barry who nodded. **"But, I already have a job at CCPD. Or is this something part time as well"** She asked.

 **"You`re the security chief. Which means you don't have to be on the premises all the time. It would be preferable, but you can also retain your job at the CCPD if you so wish. You will have to work that out with Mr. Executive Director over there"** he grinned at Cisco whose jaw fell immediately.

 **"What? It made perfect sense you'd be the second one"** Caitlin smiled at him

 **"We would like this place secure. People will start to come in, mostly scientists that will probably work here. There will be areas that will be forbidden to them, like the Cortex for obvious reasons and the Pipeline. Also we need to upgrade our security and entry protocols so that we don't get unwanted guests. And who better to do that than an ex war vet who has seen combat and knows the importance of Intelligence gathering and information limitation"** Barry told Bette.

 **"Oh, I'm definitely in"** Her face lit up and she smiled **"This is going to be something else"**

 **"Ok, Mr. Executive Director Cisco Ramon, when we finish here go take care of her employment papers and talk about how that arrangement is going to function"** Caitlin smirked

 **"Joe, Eddie. You two will be our liaisons to the CCPD. I'm not going to stop working there as a CSI either. But I would like to see if the police would be ok with us housing the more dangerous metahumans in the pipeline before being taken to Iron Heights. And the ones which are not affected by the power suppressors, or can get out of them will be housed here permanently. Of course this contract would have to be secret. It would be best if our scientists don't know they're working over a prison holding people with superpowers"** Barry continued

 **"I don't know if Singh will go for that, Barry"** Joe stated bluntly to which he got his reply

 **"Yes he will. He doesn't want to endanger the people in the precinct by keeping super powered metas around. He will jump into the idea of Offloading them somewhere else after the trial"** Caitlin replied. Joe and Eddie agreed without much thought. They were happy to be helpful anyway they could to the team, which at this point had become more like their extended family.

 **"Ok then. Since we're here. I thought I should tell you that we now own controlling interest in Palmer Tech. Their stock is at an all-time low and it made absolute sense for us to make our move. Which means we will be getting a new cyber security expert pretty soon"** Barry smiled.

 **"Oh yea. Felicity is going to be part of the team. Awesome"** Cisco smiled toward Barry **"Good call man. I might be good at hacking, but nowhere near that girl"**

 **"Cisco, you`re the most familiar with the structure of the lab, right?"** Barry asked

 **"Yes, I saw the building plans and I have worked with them when I created the 3d model that led us to find the Time vault. Why?"** the engineer replied

 **"I want you to take care of the repairs that the building needs, also I would like to add a speed lab to the building somewhere as well as a training room. Somewhere where we could spar without thinking that we're going to bring the house down. Both of those of course need to be underground. Probably somewhere around the Pipeline. You think you`re up for making something like that?"** the speedster inquired

 **"Hell yea. Of course. I have a few ideas of what the speed lab should contain, besides sensors and other stuff. It's going to be AWESOME"** the engineer's eyes sparkled for a moment and Barry knew he made the right choice to leave that to him.

As they talked Joe and Eddie saw a dark figure in the hallway. It was approaching the, so both of them pulled out their sidearm and pointed them at the stranger.

 **"Who are you and what are you doing here?"** Eddie asked the dark figure which did not move.

 **"The man asked you a question"** Joe said **"Either step into the light, or the next time you make a move you end up with a bullet in your head. Your choice"** the figure seemed to understand the predicament he was in so he came forward into the light where they could see him

 ** _"It's Jay Garrick. Or Zoom. Or whoever he is"_** Barry said blocking his face from giving away that he knew the man's identity. Caitlin looked at him and nodded.

 **"My name is Jay Garrick. And your world is in danger"** The person finally talked.

 **"What other worlds are there?"** Cisco asked with a surprised look on his face.

 **"When you created the singularity here you also created a breach. Between my world and yours"** He explained.

 **"I'm sorry, a breach. What does that mean?"** Iris asked.

 **"Yes, a portal you can call it. Connecting our two earths"** Jay added.

 **"What precisely is your concern? How is our world in danger?"** Stein asked holding Clarissa.

 **"A few days ago, you found a man, Al Rothstein, dead. A few hours later, the same man tried to kill you. That man was from my world. If he managed to get through the breach, then expect more to follow"** Jay's voice seemed distressed.

 **"Ok, so … Jay, how exactly do you know all this?"** Barry asked him

 **"In my world. I used to be a speedster like you. They used to call me The Flash. Before I arrived to your world, I was in a fight with a man named Zoom"** He continued.

 **"Zoom? We've heard that name before. Atom Smasher said that he was sent by Zoom to kill the Flash. Who is this guy?"** Caitlin stated bluntly

 **"He's a speedster, like us. And he's fast. Very fast. Maybe the fastest of us all, but evil. He is an unstoppable demon with the face of death. We were engaged in probably what was our fiercest fight ever. We were racing across my city. But I wasn't fast enough, Zoom managed to beat me and steal my speed. But when he was about to kill me, the singularity opened above and he left me to die. The breach drew me into it and the energies gave me enough strength to regenerate and I ended up in your world. But my speed is still gone"** the man stated bluntly.

 **"So why did it take you 6 months to come to us?"** Joe asked

 **"This is not my world, detective. I had no idea where I was and it took me quite a while to piece together who you all were and where I could come for help"** he replied

 **"So that's how you know our names then. You`ve been following us"** Iris spoke with a bit of disgust on her face.

 **"I know how this must all sound to you. I had nowhere else to go. Because I lost my speed I cannot go back through the breach. So, I came to you"** Jay sat down on a chair.

 **"Come with me, Jay. I want to give you a once over to know you`re all right"** Barry motioned for him to go into the med bay.

 ** _"Cait, make sure all the monitoring equipment is running. I want to measure his autonomic responses. I'll ask him a few questions and I want to make sure if he's lying or not"_** Barry told her.

 ** _"All right. You want to ask him something that you know he'll answer with the truth to establish a baseline. Then ask him whatever you want"_** he got his reply as he was connecting the leads to Jay

 **"So, you fell through the breach to our world?"** Barry asked him

 **"Yes, or more accurately I was sucked in and deposited here"** The man answered. **_"Got it. You can start"_** he heard Caitlin gave him the ok

 **"So tell me, Mr. Garrick. How long have you been the Flash on your world?"**

 **"About two years now. I was in my lab, trying to purify heavy water without any residual radiation. There was a blinding light, I went into a coma and woke up being able to run faster than sound"** Jay answered. **_"The autonomic responses are off, Barry. He's either lying or he's responding with a prefabricated story that contains some truth, but some lies as well. It's safe to say however that he is not telling you everything"_** Caitlin added in his mind

 **"So you said you lost your speed?"** Barry asked.

 **"Yes, I don't know why now. It did happen before in one of my battles with Zoom. But a scientist called Harrison Wells managed to give it back to me. He created a drug called Velocity. While its effects were not permanent, it managed to give me enough speed so I could reconnect with the Speed Force"** the answer came

 **"So you have a Harrison Wells on your earth too, huh?"** Barry said distraught **"What about this Zoom character. Do you have any idea who he is?"**

 **"No, if I would have then he might be already gone"** Jay answered **" _He's lying"_** Cait told him.

 **"So you were a scientist in your world?" Barry pressed on**

 **"Yes, but I didn't work in a place as nice as this one"** he said **" _He's lying"_** Caitlin added once again to him mentally

 **"So what happened with that Velocity drug? Did your Harrison manage to make it work?"** Barry asked

 **"No, sadly the effects were temporary and it had another side effect which made it useless. It caused cell degradation if used too much. Nothing happened to me because I had my speed and my cells were regenerating constantly, but to a normal human … it would probably mean death and not a very pleasant one"** Jay muttered

 **"Excuse me for a bit. Lie down and let the instruments take some more readings. You seem to be fine for now, but I would like to make sure so that you don't die on us suddenly, all right?"** Barry told him and he nodded while he moved back to the Cortex.

 **"So can this actually be true?"** Eddie asked. **"How many earths can there be?"**

 **"An infinite number of them. There was this theory called the Multiverse theory which handled exactly this sort of scenario"** Professor Stein started to talk and explained to the group what the theory was about. Caitlin and Barry however were not paying attention.

 ** _"So he's definitely lying about something. I think what you saw in your flashes is true. You asked him if he knew who Zoom was and he lied when he said no. So that either means he knows him or he is him"_** Caitlin mentally spoke to him

 ** _"Yeah. I only found enhanced regeneration and that's about it. There is no trace of the Speed Force in his cells. But the lie detector test proved he's hiding something"_** Barry acknowledged

 ** _"We should keep an eye on him and make sure we tell the others to not give out important information about us if they talk to him. He could be Zoom himself just coming here for a laugh"_** Caitlin managed to say before Stein finished his explanation

 **"Barry, there's a fire at the industrial plant"** Joe told the two. They went inside and managed to put out the fire not before being attacked by a man that could turn himself into what looked like sand. In the commotion he managed to slip away. The two came back to test the residue that they had on their suit.

 **"This looks like sand"** Barry said after a few hours.

 **"It's not sand, those are human cells that modified themselves to resemble sand. We're dealing with another metahuman"** Caitlin agreed

 **"His name is Sand Demon. He's from my earth too. I fought him a couple of times and manage to trap him. Zoom must have let him go to come here and try to kill you. He has a specific mode of attack. He either creates a distraction, then attacks you or he is the distraction while he creates an attack somewhere else"** Jay said coming into the cortex from the medical bay.

 **"So … how are we supposed to beat something that can literally go through my fingers?"** Barry asked.

 **"Simple. You are going to do something I never could. Throw lightning at him"** The other flash spoke simply **"You run and create a trail of lightning behind you when you do so. If you run around him, you can channel that lightning with your hand into the target. Go and practice a few times, you should get it, you`re a speedster"** Jay said with a grin on his face.

 **"Lightning plus sand** " Barry continued

 **"Equals glass"** Caitlin finished smiling at him.

The two went out and started training to be able to throw lightning, but the two came up with another way. Instead of running around to produce lightning, they would vibrate their hands, kind of like when they were using the defibrillator. It took them a while to find the correct frequency to produce static electricity out of the air that would not fizzle out after a couple of seconds, but with that they could produce lightning only out of their hands which they could then throw. It was a simpler process and it took significantly less time than running around the target. The two speedsters were happy with the results. After a few hours they were able to throw lightning consistently. Targeting however proved to be a challenge, but one they would overcome in time.

Cisco and Dr. Stein were in the basement lab coming up with a way to find all the breaches while Bette was watching Jay. The doctor postulated that if Jay was right, the exotic matter from the other universe would come over to theirs. This sort of leak could be detected by modifying the STAR labs satellite with an Electrophotography program, but the rendering would take a few hours. Stein went to another lab to grab something required for their endeavor. Cisco suddenly had a headache and a vision of a police officer that was held by Sand Demon somewhere in a warehouse. Barry and Caitlin came down to see how the two were doing and saw Cisco wincing. Joe had called them earlier to tell them that he needed their help. Sand demon wanted the Flash and he kidnapped someone.

 **"I think I know where Sand Demon is hiding"** Cisco managed to speak holding his head with both his hands.

 **"How would you know that? Joe literally called us a few minutes ago"** Barry asked

 **"Visions"** Caitlin stated bluntly **"How long have you had them, Cisco?"** Cisco looked at her with wide eyes, not understanding how she would know something like that, he decided that he would try to keep his powers secret and yet here was Caitlin asking him about them.

 **"Ever since that time I remembered dying, and then again at Flash and Frost Day, when Rothstein attacked us, and now. Caitlin is right. I get visions, sometimes when I touch something, I feel a vibe and then I get images of stuff that happened or happens. I saw Zoom send Rothstein to kill you"** Cisco said while Barry ran back up and brought him some pain meds and a glass of water. **"Thanks, Barry"**

 **"That is incredible, Cisco. You have no idea how much we can find out with this power. We should help you manage it. Just like you helped us"** Barry smiled to his friend

 **"But I don't want to. Don't need to be studied or put under a microscope"** the engineer almost shouted.

 **"We have to Cisco. Besides, it's going to be Barry and me. It's not like you didn't have us under a microscope. We need at least to know if you`re ok. Then we can give a try on you getting a handle on your powers. Remember, we're here for you and if you can't let your best friends use you for a lab rat, then who can you trust"** Caitlin gave him a bright smile

 **"You`re right. There's really no point being afraid of what would happen with you two big brains around. These powers are pretty awesome. Oh, I'm going to need a codename now, aren't I?"** He smiled. He felt comfortable with the two around and he knew that the tests they would run were for his benefit. They would never hurt him or rat him out to anyone.

 **"How about … Vibe"** Barry smiled **"You did say you get vibes before a vision so ... why not "**

 **"Vibe, I like it. Oh, that's trippy. It's the same codename we saw on that paper. The one where I took the white emblem idea to put on your suit"** The engineer realized.

 **"Don't think about it. Vibe it is. Welcome to the super powers squad"** Caitlin smiled and gave him a hug. **"So where is Sand Demon?"** Cisco pointed at a warehouse and the two speeded out.

The battle was short, Caitlin managed to surprise the metahuman with a well-placed ice blast to the chest with forced him to reform as he was attacking them. Barry vibrated both his hands and threw two bolts at them which immediately turned him into glass. The impact of the electricity pushed him back and he fell to the ground shattering. They took the officer, which turned out to be someone that Joe knew, a Patty Spivot, someone that had approached him before to become part of their metahuman task force, back to the precinct as soon as they finished.

As they ran back to the Cortex Cisco and Stein were there talking with Jay, Bette as instructed was always around keeping an eye on the supposed speedster from another world.

 **"We have a problem, Guys. The breach detection system is up and ... it seems that our opening of that singularity did not result in just one breach being opened"** Cisco said with a bit of worry on his face.

 **"How many?"** Caitlin asked instantly

 **"52 of them, Dr. Snow. All around the city. With the largest one being right here, in our basement"** Stein responded. **"The exotic matter is not something that we should be worried about yet, but there are enough for this Zoom to send metahumans to our Earth in droves if necessary"**

 **"We need to find a way to close them"** Barry added and Stein nodded.

 **"Since now I'm an official employee of STAR, I'm going to pick a place for my lab and start working on the problem immediately. By the way, thank you again"** Stein added as he tried to leave. Barry motioned him to stay.

 **"I already have a place to stay in the city. Here's my cell, if you need me for anything I'll be around"** Jay told the crew as he was heading out **"This whole metahuman business is making me hungry. Dr. Snow? Would you like to join me for a bite?"** he asked

 **"No, thank you. Me and my dorky boyfriend over here have something else planned for this evening as well as most of tomorrow"** She smiled

 ** _"Was he … just flirting with you?"_** Barry gave her a quizzical look

 ** _"Yeah, I know right. Like he'd be my type. He might be a scientist, looking good, with a bit of charm, but he could also be a homicidal maniac and I already have someone else I love"_** She answered. After Jay left there were only Bette, Cisco and Stein left in the cortex.

 **"I need you all to be careful with Jay. He does not appear to be who he says"** Barry told the group

 **"What do you mean by that, Mr. Allen?"** Martin asked.

 **"Professor Stein, if you are going to work here it would be high time that you start calling me Barry, don't you think?"** He smiled

 **"Then I insist you call me Martin as well. But you still didn't answer my question"** the professor replied

 **"When I was getting his vitals, I asked Caitlin to turn on all the sensors. Including the ones that were measuring autonomic responses"** Barry said

 **"Wait, you gave him a lie detector test?"** Bette was surprised at how Barry was suspicious. It was not in his nature.

 **"Yes, I did. Call it ... precaution, after Eobard managed to fool everyone for years. Then a new speedster without speed comes here out of the blue after stalking us for months? Yeah. Of course I gave him a lie detector test"** the speedster replied

 **"Which he failed"** Caitlin added prompting a surprised look from the rest **"Barry asked him some targeted questions. Like if he knew who Zoom was and other things. He failed precisely those questions. While that does not mean he IS Zoom, it means he is still lying and that should tell us to be careful with him"**

 **"I see now why you told me to keep an eye on him"** Bette realized.

 **"We'll leave what you do with him and if you think he might need surveillance up to you, Bette. We trust you know what to do with someone that might be a threat but doesn't need to know"** Caitlin smiled.

 **"You two said that you had plans for tonight and tomorrow? Are you going to be away?"** Bette asked, being tasked with Security meant she had to at least know if the two would be in the labs or not.

 **"Yes, we're going to Star City. We have a meeting with the board of directors of Palmer Tech tomorrow to … introduce ourselves"** Barry smiled

 **"Why do I need to go? Just made up the plan thing so I didn't have to go out with Jay"** Caitlin was surprised.

 **"Of course you need to go. Would be weird if only one of the actual owners of Palmer Tech showed up for a board meeting"** Barry responded. The response prompted a shocked look from Caitlin

 **"What do you mean, just one?"**

 **"I told you, I needed to be covert in the way we bought the shares. I didn't want to make it look like a hostile takeover, which of course isn't because we aren't direct competitors. So … I had my broker buy the shares on behalf of 3 entities. STAR Labs, Barry Allen and Caitlin Snow"** He grinned **"Congrats, you are no longer a gold-digger. You own half of our shares in Palmer Tech, partner"** The look of surprise on Caitlin's face was staggering. Her face was almost shaking and a muscle in her cheek stared to twitch. She started to bite her lower lip unconsciously, while Barry was making his little speech and gave his explanation. She didn't process the gold digger comment till way later.

 **"Hey! I thought you said I wasn't one. What gives?"** She gave him a smile.

 **"Call it a late birthday present"** Barry replied. He wanted to say something more, but Caitlin lips stopped him. She kissed him hard holding him close. The others in the cortex grinned and Cisco, as his usual self, whistled at them.

 **"You bought her a multi-million dollar company? I guess rich people do think differently"** Cisco managed to utter after he whistled realizing the amount of money involved.

 **"Yeah, so much for Barry Allen mild mannered broke CSI"** Bette joked prompting a smile from Stein. The two separated from their kiss.

 **"So yea. We need to go to Star. Which means you guys are in charge while we're gone. Try not to wreck the place"** Barry joked **"Also make sure Jay doesn't start to look around the lab. Cisco, I know I gave you a lot to do with the whole rebuilding thing, but do you think you have time to do one more thing for me?"**

 **"Sure. Name it"** The engineer replied

 **"Remember those nanites we used on Eobard? I want at least 10 more batches of them. Now that we own most of Palmer Tech, I'll have them send you Ray's designs. Call it … a precaution"** Barry explained

 **"I got you covered. I'll start work as soon as you send me the designs. I already know how the need to be reprogrammed, Felicity showed me and I have already done it one on one of the batches that helped us against the Reverse Flash"** Cisco gave him a large smile.

 **"Good. If all goes well, we should be back by tomorrow afternoon. Since we aren't taking any sort of public transportation and our top speed has increased after the black hole incident, it's easier that way"** Barry added.

 **"Besides, we always enjoy a good run together"** Caitlin replied

The two speedsters went back home. They realized that there was no reason for them to leave that night toward Star City as long as they could run there. The evening and night passed rather fast, as the next day, early in the morning, the two changed into their suits and ran to Star City. They did enjoy a good run, especially if they were both there.

Felicity was not happy, she was pacing and fidgeting in her office with a look of disdain on her face like someone had died or even worse. She had a list to fire at least 3 dozen people because of the **"downsizing"** of Palmer Tech. As much as she wanted to keep them, the board of directors told her that the company needed to remain relevant and of course, pull in a profit. If she wouldn't start firing people, then they would, by giving them instant pink slips. Felicity thought that the be extremely rude and inconsiderate considering most of them had worked there for quite a long time, so she decided to take matters into her own hands. Out of the blue however she received a call from Barry.

 **"Hey Felicity, want to go out for a coffee or something?"**

 **"I would, but …"** she trailed off **"Things aren't going well here. I have to fire a lot of people until the end of the week and I thought it would be a good idea to do until the board meeting later"**

 **"You are going to stand us up for coffee because you have to fire people?"** She heard Caitlin on the phone as well **"How very corporate of you, Ms. Smoak"**

 **"Okay, okay. I guess I can fire them later. Come pick me up"** She closed her phone and in the span of a couple of seconds she was sitting in the back of an alley near a coffee shop, with Barry next to her. They went inside and sat down at the table Caitlin was waiting at.

 **"So, what brings you two to Star City?"** Felicity asked the two. She was surprised to see them.

 **"We were … taking a bit of time off. After Eobard, we decided to dedicate more time to ourselves"** Caitlin replied

 **"Also we heard that you became Vice President of Palmer Tech. That's a long way to go from being Oliver Queen's personal internet search assistant** " Barry teased her knowing how she became to be part of the Arrow team in the first place. She had told him the first time they met after he found out Oliver's secret **.**

 **"Hey. Those days are still there. You know why"** she smiled though. She thought he had forgotten.

 **"So, what's with the firing people? Or it's something you can't discuss"** Caitlin asked.

 **"It's fine. It's not like you two are corporate spies or anything. After Ray disappeared, we do think he's dead to be truthful, the company started down spiraling. With the head of Palmer Tech out of the picture, these money grubbing bastards saw that the ship was sinking and forced us to do downsizing. One of my employees, a brilliant man, he created an algorithm to pay people more based on the value they bring to the company and the board used it to have me to fire people. The irony is that one of the people getting canned is actually the same guy that invented the whole damn thing"** Felicity said with silent hatred in her eyes.

 **"They're firing people that are brilliant, but their research takes time? Wow. Those people are idiots"** Caitlin said surprised.

 **"The best things that have been invented took time to develop. So you`re saying that if you don't bring money to the company in an allotted period of time, you`re classified as zero value and fired?"** Barry asked Felicity

 **"Yes. That's exactly it. Curtis has something in the works that might revolutionize the power cell industry and these idiots want to fire him"** She said with a raised voice

 **"Felicity, this is us you`re talking to. There's more to your anger than meets the eye isn't it?"** Barry asked

 **"Me and Oliver … we started dating. We decided to leave Star and lead a normal life outside the city. However, due to my inquisitive nature, I continued to help the people in Star City. That in itself was just me being a jerk. I wanted to enjoy my free time with Oliver, but I also could not leave this city unattended. After a little bit, the problems that arose were a little too bad to not involve myself back into them, Oliver saw that and we came back to help, even though he was really reluctant about it. But now, in part because of my meddling, Diggle doesn't talk to him. Thea had a rough time while Ollie was gone too, she was murdered by the Demon and we had to use the pit on her to bring her back, however that process gave her a rage issue and I have to fire people for a living. Good people that don't deserve the greed this board is putting on them. But I intend to change their mind. I'm going to hold a presentation at the board meeting today with Curtis's idea. Hopefully that will change their minds"** Felicity dropped everything she had on her head onto her friends.

 **"Well, congrats. That took you a long time"** Barry smirked at his blonde friend.

 **"Yea, a very long time"** the doctor agreed. The speedster had told her everything

 **"Hey, do you not keep any sort of secrets from her?"** Felicity tried to sound offended to the fact that Caitlin knew about her fawning over the Arrow.

 **"Felicity, she can literally read my mind. What secrets would I keep from her? Besides, why would I even want to? She's the woman I love for crying out loud. I'm not Oliver"** Barry made his point across rather well

 ** _"Yea, you don't keep secrets from me. Except when you`re buying me half of Palmer Tech"_** Caitlin smiled.

 ** _"Yeah. Except then. But surprises are secrets just at the start"_** Barry snickered

 **"Don't worry Felicity. Things will get better I'm sure. When is the board meeting?"** Caitlin asked

 **"In 10 minutes. Mind flashing me back to my office? I need to get ready"** the answer came. Barry took her outside and flashed her to her office with Caitlin following them.

 **"Good luck on your presentation"** The speedster couple told her.

 **"Thanks for dropping by guys. Are you staying more? Maybe meet up with Oliver later?"** she asked.

 **"Yes, we're staying a bit more. Let us know when you finished what you have to do. We can talk more then"** Caitlin answered. The two jumped out and stopped near the Palmer Tech building.

 ** _"By what Felicity told us, I don't think we can use the good people approach. If the board of directors is composed of such greedy moneygrubbers, I think it's time we change our approach a bit. What do you say?"_** Barry asked her

 ** _"I concur with that. We should present ourselves as the power players and shove them out completely. Think you can act as the bad cop in this scenario?"_** the doctor asked him with a smile on her face

 ** _"I will try. If we leave those types of leeches in the company we just bought, we might just lose it the moment we turn our backs. They have to go"_** the speedster replied

 ** _"All right then, let's go get some different clothes, these won't do. We have to act like rich powerful people"_** she completed his thoughts. The two smiled and went straight to the first expensive clothing store that they could find.

Felicity was pacing outside the conference room where the board of directors was gathered. Curtis joined her and they entered.

 **"Ms. Smoak. Glad to see you could join us"** Someone said

 **"Why was this meeting called? Is this because of the magic downsizing algorithm that made me start firing my people?"** Felicity hissed at them

 **"No. Ms. Smoak. This board of directors decided that the company was not profitable anymore. So we started to sell shares. As of yesterday, we are no longer a controlling interest in the company. So the massive firing of the people on the list you received will be the decision of the next owners"** The man said.

 **"What? Why wasn't I informed of this? You sold the company without the Vice President's knowledge? You might be the board of directors but nothing gives you that right. I should have been notified immediately"** She said with obvious anger in her voice.

 **"That doesn't matter now. This meeting was called so we could meet the new owners and see what they have in store for this company. Of course since now more than 80 percent is controlled by them, this board of directors will more than likely be disbanded and only a representative of the other 20% will be retained"** Another man commented. Felicity was livid. Ray left her the company to take care of and now it was being sold from right underneath her feet. She felt dizzy and powerless. He had to lean on Curtis to get her bearings.

 **"So, where are the new owners? Are they late on their first day?"** Felicity managed to speak.

 **"No, here they are now"** someone pointed toward the corridor. Two figures, a man wearing a black suit, black tie with a red shirt and black shoes and a woman wearing a beautiful long black dress with heels which held his arm were walking toward the meeting room. When the couple came in, Felicity froze in place. Barry Allen and Caitlin Snow, her friends, they looked different, more formal and had a demeanor that she had only seen in a few people. Very rich and very powerful people. Before she could say anything she saw Barry wink and made a sign for her not to speak.

 **"Good day to you all"** Caitlin greeted the people in the room. **"My name is Caitlin Snow and this is Barry Allen"**

 **"Good day, Ms. Snow"** They greeted back.

 **"As you probably know by now, the majority of Palmer Tech was bought off by us. This morning, our broker announced us that there were no more shares to be bought from the company. The market was dry when it came specifically to them"** She said calmly, however her voice seemed to have a bit of a displeased tone

 **"Yes, there is a small percentage that this board decided to keep"** one man replied.

 **"Last I checked, for a board of directors to have a function it would need more than 30 percent, as you know since we now own 80%, it is my opinion and understanding that this board no longer has a function. With this said, it means that this will probably be the last meeting which will be held in this formula"** Barry stated coldly

 **"But, the people that hold these shares have to have a voice in the leadership of this company"** a woman managed to speak out.

 **"The people that still hold shares in this company are all in this room. Early this morning when we found out that the company was no longer selling, I instructed my broker to find who owned stocks and buy them out. As of this point"** Barry looked at his phone with a message on it **"We now own 98 percent of Palmer Technologies. So let me reiterate. I'm sure this is the last meeting which will be held in this formula** " The looks on the faces of all the people at the table was priceless.

 **"You cannot do that. Buying separately shares from people that are not on the market is not legal. We can have you prosecuted for that"** one of the men stood up

 **"Oh? And selling shares on the market without your vice president knowing is legal? Yes, we know about that, it doesn't matter how much you tried to hide it. Sir, who would come out on top between us I wonder? I'm pretty sure I would just get a reprimand, while you would be charged with theft, if Ms. Smoak decides to sue, which I am pretty sure she does at this moment. So, please do tell me again how you can have me prosecuted for what I did, knowing that I will get a fine and you can get a prison sentence"** Barry was extremely calm, but the way he was controlling the situation was showing. His voice had a steel cold tone of a man that had been in this kind of predicament before and had always come out on top. Except she knew for a fact that he had not, which was baffling her. The man backed down almost immediately hearing those words being said by of one of the new owners and considering his options **"Ah, good I see you have decided to see what is good for you"** Barry told the man who had threatened him.

 **"None of you control more than 50 percent. So who will be director?"** one man tried to deflect the obvious discussion about the fraud

 **"What you fail to understand is the fact that we are not a separate entity. Mr. Allen and I are partners. Which means, both of us will be in charge"** Caitlin told them

 **"I would really like if you would not change the subject so readily. We are still talking about that, I shall call it fraud, in selling stocks without having the VP sign off on that. Having just two percent of a company does not entitle you to … well... anything. But I'll make you an offer. You will receive twice of what your stock in this company is worth, if you decide to sell right now. If you do not, well maybe then I will ask Ms. Smoak for a favor to sue you. I'm pretty sure with a good lawyer that I know, most of this board will be in prison by the end of next week on charges of theft and market manipulation, not to mention tax evasion"** Barry told them giving them an ice stare **"You wouldn't mind if I ask you for that tiny favor, would you, Ms. Smoak?"** he turned to the blonde.

 **"Not at all, Mr. Allen, in fact I'm pretty sure I wouldn't even consider it a favor to you, but a favor to myself and this company, considering what has happened"** the blonde said with a stern voice. Felicity had never seen this side of her friend. Barry was cold and calculated, his voice at times even giving her shivers, Caitlin had a stunning professionalism and courtesy when talking to the people in the room. He seemed to be ruthless, she was the exact opposite, a warming presence that inspired trust and comfort. The room was starting to get noisy as the people discussed amongst themselves what to do. Felicity and Curtis were still standing in a corner of the room near a whiteboard looking at the couple that entered absolutely demolishing the greedy bastards that tried to sell the company from under her. The smirk on her face was visible at the final treatment these people were getting.

 **"Do you know those two, Ms. Smoak?"** Curtis managed to whisper.

 **"Yes, they are good friends of mine. This company is safe and I'm pretty sure there will be no more downsizing as well"** she responded to him as the sound in the room came to a standstill.

 **"Fine. We'll sell you the rest"** they agreed.

 **"Wonderful. Thank you for your cooperation. You are all dismissed. Ms. Smoak, do you have their bank account data and their respective share numbers somewhere in your database?"** Barry asked keeping the professional tone.

 **"Yes, Mr. Allen. I can have them for you in a few minutes"** she found herself replying almost automatically to him. His demeanor and the way he gave off an air of controlling the room prompted her to give him a professional answer, like she was answering a superior.

 **"There is absolutely no need for that"** He turned to the people in the room **"You will receive the payment for your individual shares by the end of the day. Ms. Smoak will personally take care of it"** Barry stated coldly and he saw Felicity nodding **"Now, if you don't mind leaving the premises, we would like to be left alone. We have company business to discuss, company of which as of now you are no longer a part of"** Barry smiled as the persons started to leave one by one, until they were finally alone. He plopped in a chair and sighed heavily

 **"Wow. That took a lot out of me. Cait, next time you can be bad cop, ok? This is exhausting"** his goofy smile returned as he looked toward Felicity **"Sit you two. Sorry we had to keep you standing this whole time"**

 **"Ok, ok. I'll be the bad cop next time, I had no idea that playing a powerful douchebag took so much out of you"** Caitlin smiled and sat in his lap kissing his cheek. Felicity while giving professional answers her mind was still confused and the shocked look returned on her face as the couple in front of her returned to the people that she knew and was friends with.

 **"How? What did … did that just happen? What just happened?"** she looked at the two and babbled the couple being visibly amused at her reaction **"Where did you have the money to buy us out?"** she finally managed to articulate a sentence.

 **"After Harrison Wells died, he left me his possessions. I now own STAR Labs and an assortment of different companies which contain but are not limited to, companies that make money off the Flash, Frost and Arrow merchandize"** Barry started but he looked weird at Curtis. Felicity understood.

 **"Curtis, you can go back to work. I assume the downsizing is cancelled?"** Felicity asked the two

 **"You assume correctly"** Caitlin confirmed. Felicity waved Curtis off as he was heading back to his lab with a large smile on his face. Felicity's eyes were still asking for an explanation.

 **"Basically, all the enterprises the Reverse Flash owned are still bringing in a lot of money. Besides all the properties and the money that was still in his accounts. I'm surprised Oliver hasn't told you anything about it, I'm sure he knows"** Barry continued

 **"But … how much was it?"** Felicity was curious

 **"All of the income I get from the labs and everything in between sum up to about 72 million"** Felicity choked and Barry left her to recover before adding **"per month"** something that made her choke yet again.

 **"The assets he had plus the money he had saved up in accounts that were not directly tied to his name came to about 2.780 million. But considering Barry just spent 700 of those on buying Palmer Tech, let's call it a round 2 billion"** Caitlin continued with the explanations. Barry was amused as Felicity's face turned into a _"Say what now?"_ expression.

 **"But, they said that the new owners will be visiting. As in plural. Didn't Barry just buy out the company?"** Felicity asked.

 **"Well, no … He bought me half of it … as a delayed birthday present"** Caitlin still couldn't believe those words were coming out of her mouth. Barry bought her half of a multimillion dollar corporation, as a delayed **birthday** present. This was her life now.

 **"I heard guys buying yachts for their girlfriends but this is just …Whoa"** Felicity was still stunned by all that. Barry was a billionaire and he bought Caitlin, half of Palmer Tech, which was valued at 700 million, as a present. **"So... this was the real reason you came to Star City, wasn't it?"**

 **"Well yes and no. We still missed you and the gang. But we had to come and do this anyway. We're going to call it STAR West, so it keeps the brand alive. But even if this continues to bleed off money, we can offset with a bit of the income we get from STAR Labs. That way, what you told us this morning won't happen. Let people discover wonderful things, work and research and … we saved you from firing them as well"** Caitlin explained the plan they had for the newly acquired company

 **"At first, we just wanted to come and introduce ourselves, talk it out see what can be done. But after what you told us this morning, about the greed of those people, we decided that a more … forward approach was needed. Therefore we dressed as formal as we could and that's why you saw that good cop, bad cop routine"** Barry added.

 **"Which was seriously awesome! Barry I had no idea you could look and act so menacing. I guess I should start calling you Boss then?"** Felicity smirked at him

 **"Nope. If you ever call me anything else than Barry, I'm going to fire you. Ms. Smoak"** Barry told her with the same professional tone that he used on the board members. Immediately cracking and starting to laugh. Felicity joined him.

 **"You can't, you need my approval"** Caitlin joked.

 **"Oh I think I can get that quite easily** " He leaned in and kissed the beautiful woman that was fidgeting in his lap.

 **"Yes, yes you can"** She muttered as they were kissing.


	27. Family

Caitlin and Barry had changed into normal clothes. Being the **"corporate"** big shots that they had to pretend to be earlier was not something they enjoyed. They did promise Felicity that they would be around for a bit more but when they asked her who could come along, she could only think about Oliver. The problems that the team had these days made it hard for them to be in the same room so … they decided to just go out with Felicity and Oliver.

The two were in a coffee shop in front of what would become STAR West. They saw Felicity and the Arrow coming in and sitting at the table they were sitting.

 **"Hello, Oliver"** Barry put out a hand which the archer shook

 **"Barry, Caitlin. What brings you to Star City?"** he asked

 **"Oh, you didn't tell him?"** Caitlin smiled.

 **"No, didn't have time, he was …. Busy. Until now"** Felicity replied

 **"We just bought Palmer Tech"** Barry told Oliver rather bluntly.

 **"Say what now?"** Oliver made a strange face

 **"They just bought Palmer Tech"** Felicity smiled **"And saved me from firing a lot of people"**

 **"Ah you started to invest the money Eobard left you"** Oliver stated bluntly

 **"Pretty much. I didn't know what to do with all that cash"** Barry started to laugh at how that sounded.

 **"And he bought his girlfriend over there half of Palmer Tech as a birthday present. Because… rich people"** Felicity groaned making Oliver roll his eyes.

 **"Felicity, I am one of those rich people. Well... I used to be"** the archer looked at her coyly

 **"It's fine, she can put you up to speed with everything. By the way, Felicity you still get to be vice president of the newly acquired STAR West. So don't worry about job security"** Barry told her

 **"We wanted to see how you were doing, Oliver. Just a coffee between friends, since we were in town anyway it wouldn't be polite of us not to call"** Caitlin said

 **"Yeah, we'll also need to talk to Lyla. But that will be a less courteous call. We want to ask her help with some of the stops that the government has put on STAR Labs. Since we want to reopen it"** Barry continued

 **"I'm glad to see you`re ok you two. I'm mostly fine, still getting used to this life even though we managed to get a few weeks away somewhere else"** he looked at Felicity

 **"Congrats on you two dating. Didn't you say once that heroes don't get the girl?"** Barry smiled

 **"I was wrong"** Oliver looked at his friends **"You seem to have done pretty good for yourself"** he smirked

 **"Look who's talking"** Barry smiled

 **"You two do realize we're still here, right?"** Felicity cut in.

 **"Yes, we do."** Barry's hand had been holding Caitlin's all that time.

 **"One more thing. Felicity, when you have time, take the STAR West jet and come over to Central City. We are planning to revamp the security systems down at the labs and we could use your help. Oliver, if you want to join her, you are always welcome"** Caitlin told them.

 **"Sure. I'll drop by whenever I have some free time. Unless you need me to come at a specific time?"** she asked.

 **"Not as of yet, Cisco is still handling the repairs to the lab, no point to have an advanced security system when you have a gaping hole in the roof. Keep the new management for now to yourself. We will need to get STAR out into the light then we can announce the name change, the fact that we bought it and other things."** Barry answered her and she nodded.

They talked about what happened, Felicity telling Oliver about the stunt the two pulled back at the company. Oliver talked about the issues that were in the team, with Dig and Thea. He didn't really open up to anyone, but the couple in front of him inspired trust, so he was able to talk bluntly and without restraint, something that he would usually manage to just only around Felicity. This didn't last long as Oliver received a phone call which had him return to Queen Manor for something urgent. The couple said goodbye to Felicity and left Star City returning to Central. When they got home Caitlin went out and got a few pizzas so they could replenish the energy that they had just expended running all the way back.

Barry went to take a shower when his phone rang. It was Iris. She was caught up in something on the construction levels of a high rise in town. Caitlin heard gunshots. There were two men coming after her. Caitlin flashed over there defusing the situation and getting Iris our while taking care of the disabled men. She admonished her about not being bulletproof and that she had to be more careful than that. If the two weren't back from Star City, she could have been killed. Frost made a point in telling Iris that if she wanted to poke the bear, at least she could do is make sure that her or Barry were in town. The reporter understood their concern and agreed, thanking Caitlin for the assist. Not seeing any point in staying around the speedster returned to their apartment.

 **"Who was that, Cait?"** he asked drying his hair

 **"Iris, she got into some trouble downtown. You were in the shower so I went to help"** She responded

 **"I hope you told her next time she wants to do something like that at least make sure we're not out of town"** Barry commented

 **"I did, but somehow I doubt that she will listen. I just hope she doesn't get herself killed while we're not here, because that would be unfortunate"** Caitlin stated before taking off her Frost suit.

They managed to get some rest for the night, falling asleep cuddled in bed. The next morning they received a very excited call from professor Stein so they got some clothes on and left for STAR Labs and stopped in the basement where Stein and Cisco were looking at something Jay had been building.

 **"Good morning. What's that?"** Caitlin asked

 **"It's a speed cannon. Something to permit you two to travel to the other earth, even if you don't have the velocity required yet. Think of the breach as an unstable hallway. As it twists and turns the doors keep shifting. What this does is simply hold the door in place so the hallway doesn't move"** Jay smiled

 **"It also seems to hold the added benefit of stabilizing the breach enough for it not to be a danger to the labs"** Stein added.

 **"How did you manage to stabilize it?"** Cisco asked confused, he had thought of countless ways that he could do it but none of the technology required was available.

 **"I created CFL quark matter and used it to stabilize the event horizon"** Jay managed to explain. Cisco was surprised, that was something he had never thought about because they simply hadn't found a way yet to synthesize that type of material on this Earth.

 **"Negative energy density with positive surface pressure. That is … quite ingenious, Mr. Garrick. We have not found a way to use that sort of material here"** Professor Stein was most impressed. Our two speedsters however had their doubts.

 ** _"So, why did we stabilize this breach again? No offense to Jay or whoever he is being a genius, but … doesn't this mean that now whoever is on the other side of this hole has a direct path to STAR?"_** Barry was not impressed by the security problem this would entail

 ** _"Yeah, that's exactly what that means. We're going to have to seal this somehow and not let anyone out of this chamber without some sort of biometric identification"_** Caitlin answered turning to Bette. **"Bette, Cisco, can you seal this room with biometric sensors? I don't want anyone coming in here without having the correct credentials"** She continued

 **"While anyone coming here will probably not be an issue. We don't want anyone coming out of here. If you understand what I'm saying. We don't know where this breach leads. It can lead to Zoom's back door for all we know"** Barry told his friends.

 **"We'll get right on that. You two are right. This is still a two way door, so it should be secured"** Bette acknowledged **"I'm going to set that up. Cisco, I'll call you when I get to the tech part "**

 **"I'll be here, or … do you guys want to go get some coffee? I didn't really have time to get mine this morning"** He asked

 **"We could go for some coffee"** The speedster couple agreed.

 **"I have not been feeling well, I'm going to get some rest"** Stein explained

 **"We need to give you a once over, professor. You have not been feeling well for a while now"** Caitlin was worried about him.

 **"We can do that later, my dear, it's not like I'm going anywhere"** he smiled going back to his lab.

The three went to Jitters and sat at a table while Cisco went to get their orders. An unlikely person came to their table to ask for assistance. Lisa Snart, sister of Leonard Snart, also known as captain Cold. They have had run ins with her before, especially notable being the Golden Glider incident but they were surprised to see her.

 **"Well, well, well. If it isn't Lisa Snart. What are you doing here? Trying to double cross us again?"** Cisco said with visible annoyance in his voice.

 **"Actually, I need your help"** she said quite nonchalantly

 **"You know I can call the Flash to come pick you up"** Cisco responded **"Then you'll being in prison as fast as you can say gold"**

 **"It's good that he can come when you call him because what I'm about to ask might need his help too"** she leaned over to Cisco

 **"So … what is it?"** Caitlin asked pretty directly

 **"My brother has been kidnapped. I saw it happen. I really need your help"** her face and her eyes conveyed pretty directly the fact that she was very worried for her brother.

 **"Get our coffees to go, Cisco"** Barry faked a call for a CSI emergency at CCPD.

 ** _"This way we don't really have to tell her who we are. Since we have stuff to do she will think that we actually left"_** The speedster told his girlfriend

 ** _"Quick thinking, even if Lenny knows who you are I doubt he told Lisa the complete story. He doesn't seem the person to do that"_** She replied

 **"What is it, Barry?"** the engineer asked

 **"CCPD Emergency, me and Caitlin will have to let you two deal with whatever it is yourselves. We are needed at the precinct"** He told the two. Lisa made a curious face, but said nothing. Cisco nodded and the two were out the door. In a few seconds they had made it back to STAR and put on their suits rushing back to Jitters and finding Lisa and Cisco in front. The two speedsters grabbed them and sped with them straight to the labs.

 **"That was … different. I guess you weren't kidding when you said you could call the Flash to come and pick me up. What, do you have them on speed dial or something?"** She asked pointing at the two speedsters that were standing in the middle of the Cortex

 **"So … how did Captain Cold actually manage to get himself kidnapped?"** Barry gave Lisa a really surprised look **"I know him, he plans ahead by miles and the makes backups for those plans and makes backups for the backups. So what happened now?"**

 **"Last night, me, Lenny and Mick were knocking over the cashier's registers at the Central City Race track. A little victimless crime and we did need the money"** She started her story

 **"Just out of curiosity, do you get physical pain somewhere in your bodies if you don`t rob people?"** Frost smirked at her.

 **"Sadly the job wasn't finished. After Mick torched through the side of the building, when I turned around I saw Lenny being dragged off into a white van. I wanted to go after him, but someone hit me and I fell unconscious on the floor. When I woke up … Mick ran away with the money and I had a pain in my neck"** She revealed with a slight annoyed look on her face.

 **"So, what about this doesn't look like a trap to you?"** Frost asked

 **"Look, I know he's missing. He always tells me when he's on jobs and even if we don't talk he has his ways of letting me know he's all right. This isn't like that. Besides, I do think you owe my brother a favor, from the airplane incident"** she retorted.

 ** _"I don't trust her"_** Caitlin told Barry in her mind

 ** _"I don't either. But she has a point. Let's hear her out. See what she has to say. We can always put her in prison if she tries anything"_** Barry pointed out. Caitlin nodded.

 **"Well, she does have a point"** Cisco said almost like reading their minds **"Anyway, back when I rebuilt the cold gun, I didn't have time to put a tracker in it. So… I modified it a bit to emit something that I could track. Ultraviolet cold signatures"** He went to the console and started to type. After a few minutes he spoke **"There we go. The gun was picked up at 5th and Hoyt 8 minutes ago"**

 **"Let's see if you`re telling us the truth. Come on, Frost. We have a meeting with Cold"** the two speedsters ran to where the cold gun was used. They found Snart, but he wasn't alone. He tried to freeze Barry, but Caitlin already had up two ice shields in front of him before he fired his gun. When they got up Snart froze everything behind them and ran out with the person that the two speedsters found out was his dad.

 **"Lisa, you have a lot of explaining to do. Lenny wasn't kidnapped, he was working a job. With your father"** Frost hissed at her.

 **"What? That's not possible"** she replied with a genuine look of surprise on her face **"Are you sure it was my dad?"**

 **"Yes, pretty sure"** Frost replied

 **"You have to believe me, something is wrong. Lenny would never pull a job with his own father. He hates him"** Lisa added

 **"Why does he hate him? Looks like your family is full of criminals"** Barry replied.

 **"Because I didn't get this being a criminal. I got it from being a daughter"** She pulled her t-shit to the side. On the base of her neck on her right shoulder there was an ugly scar. Something that had healed way before. She sighed. **"First time my dad came after me, I was 7. Next time, I was 8. Then is when I found out the hard way that a bottle hurts worse than a fist. He used to say he was trying to teach us lessons. I must have been a slow learner, because the lessons never stopped"** Lisa sighed again **"Lenny practically raised me, without him I would have probably either dead or be … much worse"**

 **"How could you be any worse?"** Cisco interjected in her thoughts.

 **"There could have been much worse ways to live your life. He might be a jerk brother, but he's the only brother I have. He cared for me, he made sure I always had what I needed and, most of all, he protected me from that mad man. Now it's my turn to try and help him, even if that meant coming to you to ask for it"** She announced with a steel determination in her voice **"If he is indeed with my dad, then he is in serious trouble. Please, you have to find out what's going on"**

 **"Well, we have to try at least"** Frost interjected. She had a missed call from Joe on her phone. She didn't call him back however, just deciding to go and see what was going on.

 **"Cisco, keep her safe and run scans on her, I have a feeling that something might be wrong, ever since she told us that her neck hurt. Flash, we have somewhere we need to be"** she pointed at her phone. While Cisco began scanning Lisa, they flashed to the West residence.

 **"Joe, you all right?"**

 **"I need advice. Iris's mom is alive. She came to me and didn't accept my offer to leave town. Now I don't know how to tell Iris about her. I lied to you, to her, to everyone"** he sighed not being able to keep the disillusioned grimace on his face.

 **"Why would you do that, Joe? You must have had a reason to lie for all this time. We know you. Tell us, what did she do to make you act this way?"** Caitlin asked the detective

 **"Francine …. She did a whole lot of things wrong. Just about everything. I don't know. Now I feel like my one wrong might be worse"** Joe said

 **"Come on Joe. I've known you for most of my life. Obviously you were worried if Iris would go down the wrong path, if Francine would have raised her. Look at Snart. He's a criminal because he had Louis for a dad. That could have been me. But it's not because I had you and so did Iris"** Barry interjected

 **"I'm just afraid if I tell her she won't understand. She might hate me and I might lose her. I'm afraid that I'll hurt her"** the old detective continued.

 **"Joe, she isn't a little girl anymore. You should have seen her the other day. Investigating, sticking her neck out for a story. You will hurt her and she will forgive you, you just have to give her a chance. Trust me, finding that out from somewhere else than her own father will hurt her way more"** Caitlin reasoned with him. Joe's phone rang.

 **"911 call. You have your kits with you?"** he asked.

 **"No, but we'll go to STAR and get one. You go to the crime scene and we'll meet you there"** Barry commented and they flashed out the door. At the crime scene a familiar woman was waiting for them

 **"Barry, Caitlin, this is officer Spivot. The one that Flash and Frost helped on the whole sand demon incident. She joined the taskforce with me and Eddie. Patty, this is Barry Allen and his partner Caitlin Snow"** Joe introduced them to the new arrival.

 **"Glad to meet you. I have read some of Barry's CSI reports, but I have not seen any of yours Ms. Snow"** she replied

 **"That's because she's just helping me in her free time. Caitlin is a bioengineer, geneticist and molecular biologist. Her main body of work is done for STAR Labs, not for the NCPD"** Barry said with a proud voice, prompting Patty's jaw to fall.

 **"But, you have such a wonderful job… why spend your free time around corpses and police work?"** She continued

 **"I don't mind corpses that much, police work is most of the times an extension of the work I already do at STAR, but most of all it's because I like spending time with the person I love"** Caitlin smiled and went to uncover the body, making a grimace when she saw the headless corpse. **"Well this is different"** she commented.

 **"Uh!"** Patty jumped **"I thought I stepped on an ear. I guess not because if I would have I would be hearing things"**

 ** _"Oh god, there's another one of those people"_** Barry smiled prompting Caitlin to chuckle as she remembered Ray and Felicity.

 **"Doesn't look like the head was sliced off with any weapon I'm familiar with"** Caitlin started

 **"No, the wounds are jagged, more like... his head was cleanly blown off by ... something"** Barry confirmed.

 **"So … Metahuman? Someone who can explode heads?"** Patty asked

 **"No, not necessarily, you see this type of damage could potentially be caused by …"** Caitlin started to say, but Barry finished her sentence

 **"An explosive charge put somewhere in the back at the base of the neck"** Caitlin grabbed the portable spectrometer and started to scan around. It detected explosives traces almost immediately **"This confirms what you were saying, Barry. Traces of thermite".** Patty was sitting there with her jaw firmly planted in the ground. She had the opportunity to look at the body and yet she never thought to check for what the two just did. She was impressed by the way they finished their sentences, almost like they were speaking each other's thoughts.

 **"The victim's name is David Gutenberg. He's a security systems specialist. And one name from his former list of associates will ring very familiar. Louis Snart"** Joe came by with a file

 **"Is he a relative of Leonard Snart, also known as Captain Cold?"** Patty asked.

 **"He is his father apparently. Barry, Caitlin, can you come here for a minute"** Joe called the two speedsters as he was walking back to his car. **"So … didn't you and Snart have a deal?"**

 **"I think this is his father's doing and he's working with him because he's afraid to lose something, well the only thing he loves on this earth. His sister"** Barry answered

 **"Damn. Lisa might have a bomb in her neck. We need to warn Cisco. Talk to you later, Joe"** the two walked away until they were far enough then flashed back to STAR. Joe came back while Patty was still looking around the body.

 **"Sir, if I'm not intruding in something personal, what's the deal with those two?"** she asked **"I find it strange that a scientist that works at STAR Labs is following a CSI around to help with his cases"**

 **"Promise to keep this to yourself?"** Joe asked determining that she is trustworthy, but not for all of it

 **"Of course"** Patty agreed

 **"Barry doesn't have to work at the CCPD. He does so because he loves the job and the scientist … she loves him. So she would take any chance to come out of the labs and help as long as they are together. Besides she's a molecular biologist, bio engineer, doctor, geneticist, hematologist and a few more other things I can't pronounce. Oh and also a CSI or else Singh wouldn't allow her anywhere near a crime scene"** Joe whispered silently speaking with pride about Caitlin.

 **"Whoa… She's a really smart woman, isn't she? Doesn't her boss have a problem with that? I mean not obviously Harrison Wells because he's dead. As for Barry Allen, why doesn't he have to work here? He's rich or something?"** she was a bit confused.

 **"Smart woman might be a very large understatement. I doubt her boss would have any issue with her missing work, considering Barry is that boss and taking into account the fact she is his girlfriend. Although to be fair, I don't think she is going to be "just" a girlfriend for much longer. Call it intuition"** Joe smiled seeing Patty's face drop.

 **"Wait … did you say what I thought you said?"** Patty managed to gather herself.

 **"Yes. I did. I don't think I stuttered, did I?"** Joe chuckled.

 **"Ah, I see now why he doesn't have to work. He owns STAR Labs, which makes her … his employee"** Patty explained her thought out loud.

 **"I have known those two ever since they met. There has never been a boss employee relationship between them. They were always partners. Which they will probably become soon enough"** Joe smiled

Patty was really surprised. Someone who made enough money to live off easily by not doing anything was working for the CCPD as a CSI simply because he liked it. What puzzled her more was the fact that a very smart woman was choosing to come with him and work as a CSI herself. She was a bit taken aback by the amount of degrees the quiet and professional scientist had under her belt, but she shrugged it off thanking someone high above that she was on their side.

Meanwhile back at STAR Labs, Cisco managed to finish his tests on Lisa and found literally nothing, when Barry and Caitlin arrived.

 **"Guys, there was nothing on her. I tested for anything poisonous or viruses or whatever else I could think of"** Cisco told the two

 **"Did you test for thermite?"** Frost asked bluntly.

 **"Why would I test for that? … Oh. On it"** Cisco went back to his lab to get another type of sensory array. When he scanned Lisa he found trace residue of it on her neck **"How did you know?"**

 **"The police found a dead body with its head blown off. It had traces of thermite around the neck area and his old partner's list had a name you know already. Louis Snart"** the Flash continued.

 **"Which means Lisa has a bomb in her. Explains why Lenny would work with the man he hates. He managed to take his own daughter as a hostage. That's some father"** Frost concluded as Lisa made a worried face.

 **"When you were knocked out, your dad must have injected you with it"** Cisco explained to her. The flash took a directed electro magnet and aimed it at Lisa's neck.

 **"Frost, can you take the bomb out if I manage to bring it closer to the surface?"** He asked.

 **"Yes. I can surgically excise it if needed but it should be possible nonetheless"** she replied, but after a few minutes Cisco came in yelling for him to put the magnet down, because the bomb would be sensitive to magnetic friction and an oxidant. Basically when they took it out it would explode being exposed to air.

 **"Can Frost freeze it and we can then speed extract it?"** Barry inquired the engineer, but the answer came from her

 **"I could but it would mean freezing half her neck. The frostbite alone might kill her since she doesn't have the accelerated healing we do. That's not really an option. Even if you speed extract it, if I miss encasing it in ice by a microsecond, Lisa loses her head"** Frost concluded.

 **"I'll find a way to get it out, but I'll need a few hours"** Cisco was hopeful

 **"Until then, we need to find a way to track Louis and his gang"** Flash retorted

 **"If only we can find out why they are trying to steal"** Frost thought out loud.

 **"Maybe I can get them to tell me, their tech guy just lost his head. So ... I'm going to go under cover and ask. Cold already knows who I am so it shouldn't be a problem"** Flash though

 **"You`re going to pretend to be a criminal?"** Frost laughed at him

 **"Well, yeah ... how hard can it be?"** He chuckled. Lisa looked weird at this what could only be called band of brothers. She was a criminal and these three geeks, because she could see clearly that's what they were, were trying to save her life. She was thankful, especially to Cisco for which she had a slight attraction. But she would never admit that out loud.

Barry went straight to Snart. He told him what they had found and that the team was working on a way to get the bomb out of his sister. He reluctantly agreed to cover for Barry with his dad, who got accepted to the team of misfits just as he predicted. They were supposed to hit a diamond exchange where they would store out of sale diamonds that were worth a fortune. Barry kept tabs on them while Cisco was working in the lab. Frost was pacing back and forth waiting for anything from the Flash.

 **"You`re worried about him, aren't you?"** Lisa asked the visibly distraught Frost, that was pacing so hard that sometimes there appeared to be three or even four of her that were moving at the same time. She did notice that in the monitors that were reflecting her image and made a mental note about it for later use.

 **"Yea. He's way too much of a boy scout to act like a criminal and I doubt that nothing will happen to him if your dad finds out. He did put a bomb in your neck, which means he has no scruples when it comes to getting what he wants. Such a man is dangerous"** she replied coming to a halt in front of her.

 **"That's not the whole story though. Nobody worries the way you`re pacing for just a friend"** Lisa stated bluntly

 **"He isn't just a friend. I wonder what gave you that idea. He's my partner and my boyfriend"** Frost explained

 **"Ah. That makes more sense. Don't worry, if Lenny knows you guys are trying to help me then he will take care of your boyfriend. Or at least make sure he doesn't die. He might be a thief and a jerk, but he always pays his debts"** Lisa knew her brother very well. Cisco came back with a high powered air rifle after about two hours. He didn't have time to perfect it but it should have worked.

 **"This should do the trick. It has over 1000 psi operating pressure, I just put this against her neck and the bomb gets pulled inside the barrel. At which point, Frost, you need to get the chamber and throw it in the river or somewhere that if it explodes, it can't hurt anyone. There is … one slight problem"** Cisco was a bit unsure of himself. **"It does use … compressed air, which might trigger it as it's being aspirated"**

 **"Cisco, just do it. I trust you"** Lisa told him grabbing his hand for security. Cisco put the gun up to her neck and fired. The bomb got extracted, but Frost could see in the dilated time scape that it already started a reaction in the chamber. She took it off the gun and ran it out of the lab throwing it in the river. Then by the time she returned, a blast could be heard from outside.

 **"Well, that went better that expected"** She smiled **"Glad I saw it start to fizzle or else you'd have both lost your heads"** she then told her partner through their link **" _Barry. Lisa is safe. We managed to get the bomb out of her. How are you faring?"_**

 ** _"We're almost on the site for the job. Somehow I doubt Snart will go with it now that Lisa is safe. I'll let you know what happens. I don't think you need to come. I have the feeling Snart is going to kill his old man and I think he is totally deserving of what he is going to get. Putting a bomb in your own daughter's neck? Yeah … that's just low"_** Barry replied and he was right. Snart did kill his old man the second he found out that Lisa was safe. The only thing he said was this

 **"He broke my sister's heart. It's only fair I break his"**

 **"Hey, you want to see your sister before I take you to prison?"** Barry asked him

 **"Why would you do that for me?"** Cold replied

 **"Because now I know your secret. You might not care about yourself. But you do care about Lisa"** He smiled and Cold nodded.

They gave the two siblings a bit of time to talk. They couldn't hear any of them talking and none of them bothered to try to read what they were saying. The two were obviously happy to see each other. After a while Cold came back out from the medical bay and the Flash took him back to Iron Heights.

Lisa stayed around for a while, producing quite a bit of annoyance for Bette. She was flirting with Cisco a lot, even when he was seemingly uninterested and kept smiling at the bomb expert. She finally thanked everyone, wanting to ask who the two heroes were that helped her, but she stopped herself. It was their secret to tell and if they hadn't told her till then … they would never have.

Bette and Cisco managed to secure the breach room. They had a fingerprint reader and an iris scanner. The only people that had direct access through their biometrics were Barry and Caitlin, Cisco, Bette and Professor Stein. They had decided to leave out Jay for obvious reasons, but that wasn't an issue since Bette was with him most of the time. She had taken her job as security chief very seriously.

Professor Stein however seemed to be feeling better. When they returned the couple took the professor back in for a round of tests. But while they were walking toward the Cortex the professor starting to seize flaming up like he was Firestorm and then the normal flames turned to blue, his eyes went black and he fell to the ground motionless.

 **"I guess that's the answer to whether he is or isn't all right"** Barry looked at the professor with a worried face

 **"Yeah, come on, let's get him to the medical bay. We really need to find out what the hell is going on In his system, and now that he's out maybe he'll stop fighting us when we want to give him a full physical"** Caitlin told him and she smiled.


	28. Tandem

Cisco and Caitlin were in the medical bay with Professor Stein flaming in his bed. From the tests they managed to perform it seemed that the Firestorm matrix in him was destabilizing once again.

 **"Caitlin, I can make something to keep his condition stable. But I can't make it in less than 30 minutes. If this keeps up his body will burn before I can be done"** Cisco told her

 **"Cait, your cells need heat. Usually they take that heat from the energy inside you. Is there any way you can absorb it from the outside?"** Barry asked flashing in the medical bay remembering what happened when she had lost her speed because of BlackOut.

 **"I can try"** She put her hand on Steins chest and after a few seconds of focusing, his temperature started going down to normal levels **"This feels, different"** she said

 **"Can you keep that up for half an hour? I'll go build the stabilizer"** Cisco asked and when she nodded he ran out of the Cortex back to his lab.

 ** _"Are you sure you can keep it up?"_** Barry asked seeing her already flushed.

 ** _"I don't know. But if can't professor Stein can die. So I have to"_** she responded.

Cisco returned to the Cortex in less than the 30 minutes he asked for. He managed to jerry rig a stabilizer out of the original design of the fake Harrison Wells. Caitlin was not looking good, even with her cool exterior you could see she was sweating. That was something that she never did, except during some nights, which entailed exercise. Barry checked her vitals and saw that her cells were overcharged and her body temperature was close to that of a normal human, which if would have been any other person would have been all right. In her case however it was not. While her powers were active and not suppressed, her body temp was always lower. After the engineer activated the device she smiled then started to fall to the ground, prompting Barry to catch her before she hit her head and put her in a bed as well. She woke up two hours later, seeing Barry fuss over her.

 **"Hey there, beautiful. Glad you decided to grace us with your presence"** the speedster smiled.

 **"What happened to me?"** she asked.

 **"You were overcharging yourself by draining that much heat from Stein. Something happened that I haven't seen before. Instead of your ice powers taking energy from your body, they started giving it energy instead. The amount of power that was forced in your cells by the draining process, prompted them to change to accommodate that power. That in turn cost you a lot of energy because you needed to regenerate. So … you basically blacked out from exhaustion"** Barry smiled taking her hand.

 **"Is Professor Stein all right?"** she asked finally managed to sit up helped by Barry

 **"Yes, for now the matrix is stable, he is out of danger. I bought a few pizzas. You need to get your energy up"** he smiled and helped her to get to the table. Cisco came back

 **"Guys, we have a problem. I did my best to build that stabilizer as close to Wells' original specs. But I couldn't replicate the power source he was using, so I had to put one of ours in. The problem is that will have a limited life"** the engineer managed to say without taking a breath.

 **"How much time do we have?"** Barry asked visibly worried.

 **"Four days, at the most. After that the device will stop functioning and Martin will begin to start fluctuating again"** He got his answer rather quick.

 **"I can probably keep him stable for another day or so"** Caitlin started only to be cut off

 **"No you cannot. Absorbing that much energy might kill you. This happened only from 30 minutes exposed to the energy he creates. If you try to keep him stable for more than that by absorbing energy from him, your cell membranes might rupture and when they do, no amount of accelerated healing will stop you from disintegrating"** Barry stated bluntly.

 **"So we have to resolve this problem in four days"** she said **"I thought this might happen. The professor's cells cannot be stabilized without something for them to bond to"**

 **"Before, it was Ronnie. He was the host, but now he doesn't have a host so he's missing the regulator element from stopping him going nuclear"** the CSI revealed.

 **"Yes. Precisely. I have been working to find a suitable replacement for Ronnie after he died. It came down to two candidates, both were hit by the particle explosion and both were admitted to the hospital with gene mutations, but didn't develop powers. Also both of them have the same blood type as Ronnie and Professor Stein"** she said

 **"We need blood samples from them to see if the genetic locus of the mutation that they have Is compatible to that of professor Stein. If we find a match, we might be able to save his life"** Barry uttered thinking out loud which prompted Caitlin to give him a whistle.

 **"Well look at you, aren't you the geneticist"** she smiled at him

 **"I have my beautiful girlfriend to thank for sharing all that with me** " he gave her a grin prompting Cisco to interject.

 **"I suggest you stop the Disney romance scene and see if you can get their blood then"** Caitlin slapped him on the back of the head playfully

 **"We need to talk to them, get consent, then get blood after that we can analyze which would work best. That will take time, probably more than we have"** she sighed. Realizing they do not have the luxury to be courteous or to go through proper channels, Barry flashed out and was back a minute later with two vials of blood.

 **"Wow, that was fast. Even for you"** Cisco quipped.

 **"I might have taken these samples …. Without their knowledge"** He looked at Caitlin who nodded. **"Let's go then. We have some tests to run. You take one I'll take the other, Cait?"** he asked.

 **"Yes, let's go, Mr. Allen"** she smiled. Cisco already knew what was coming so he went back to the medical bay to keep an eye on Stein for the time being, making adjustments to the stabilizer for optimum power consumption. If he could squeeze another day out of it would be really helpful for his friends.

 **"Dr. Snow, what happened to me?"** professor Stein woke up after a while seeing the two flashes frantically working in the lab. One of them stopped next to his bed.

 **"Your cellular structure is destabilizing. The longer you go without merging the more chance there is you might go nuclear"** she responded to his question

 **"Well, that's an unfortunate turn of events"** he managed to stand up taking the cane that Cisco made which housed the stabilizer.

 **"We might have managed to find you someone compatible"** Barry came to a stop as well. **"We ran both these candidates and the agglutination in the blood was good and they were both negative for abnormalities. Which means they are both compatible candidates with your physiology, professor"**

 **"So, who do we pick?"** Cisco asked.

 **"My first choice would be the scientist. His name is Henry Hewitt. He graduated Summa cum Laude from Hudson University with a double major in applied physics and bioengineering"** Caitlin took a pick

 **"Maybe, but remember how it was with Ronnie. This guy, Jefferson Jackson has more physical attributes and more of his alleles align and match Professor Stein. So … maybe he would be the better candidate"** Barry explained.

 **"On paper, perhaps, but Hewitt is a scientist, clearly wants to make something with his life. He might be more open to something like this."** Caitlin wanted to justify her choice but Barry cut her off.

 **"Cait, everything we do is based on scientific proof. More of our lives were spent on paper than in the real world. You should know by now that if someone has a goal or not means nothing when genetics is concerned. I'm not saying you are wrong, but I think we should meet with both of them and let professor Stein decide who he wants more"** Barry explained his point

 **"Yes, we shall go meet both. If there is someone I have to share a body with, then I should at least like them a minimum amount"** Stein said.

Jefferson was pretty reluctant to hear the plea of the two people he was meeting. He didn't want his life to get wasted again. The high school quarterback lost his career that day after the explosion, now working as an auto mechanic. He woke up in the hospital with serious injuries that meant he lost any chance of him playing pro ball.

Hewitt was another matter. He came straight to the labs and after discussing with the professor, the group decided that he should try the merging. After being injected with a molecular primer for his cells and putting on the quantum splicer the two touched, and nothing happened. Even after a few more tries the Firestorm matrix seemed to reject Hewitt. They weren't compatible at all, which enraged the scientist prompting him to leave after being rather rude to the group. Caitlin was surprised, she had never misjudged anyone so badly, he was a scientist, but his temper was something else.

 **"Well that settles that. Caitlin did you not check this guy's arrest record?"** Cisco asked

 **"What arrest record, I didn't find any"** she looked confused at the engineer.

 **"Of course you didn't. It was sealed, I had to hack into it. 2 accounts assault and battery, 2 accounts aggravated assault, court mandated anger management issues"** Cisco told Caitlin.

 **"So, I guess a hothead with a preference for violence is not someone Professor Stein would be compatible with. Then I guess there is only one viable alternative. We need to get Jefferson here"** Barry commented. In a few minutes Caitlin was back with the quarterback. She had flashed him to STAR Labs.

 **"How did I get here?"** he asked recognizing instantly the two in front of him, also the woman that brought him here **"Wait, you weren't kidding when you said that other people have gotten super powers from the particle accelerator"** he looked strangely at the people in the Cortex.

 **"Of course we weren't. You already know Barry Allen, also known as Flash and Professor Martin Stein, also known as Firestorm. I'm Caitlin Snow, my alter ego is Frost and the man over there is Cisco Ramon, called Vibe. Everyone you see here … are not normal humans"** She presented herself and the others in more detail

 **"Flash and Frost. That's you two?"** Jefferson looked surprised at the geeky looking scientists in front of him.

 **"What did you think, not everyone has to be an athlete to get superpowers"** Barry smiled at the quarterback **"We are just people that do what we thing is right and try to keep other people safe"**

 **"You see, Jefferson. That explosion didn't just bust up your knee. It changed who you are on a molecular level"** Stein replied

 **"So wait, you mean I'm like one of those metahumans that I keep hearing about on TV?"** Jefferson was surprised.

 **"We think you might have potential capabilities that come from that changed molecular structure"** Barry replied.

 **"What kind of potential capabilities?"** the quarterback asked.

 **"The same as Professor Stein. You have the power to process Fission and Fusion and if that's not enough, you can harness that energy into these massive nuclear blasts. And you can fly. I surely didn't want to forget that"** Barry replied

 **"Check that out"** Cisco pointed to a TV where a news report of an incident at a lab in town. The news reported it as an accident but something was off. Then they realized it was the lab that Hewitt worked at.

 **"The failed merging must have activated his latent abilities"** Caitlin managed to say **"It looks like we're responsible for what happened there"**

 **"Which means that now he has almost the same abilities as me. That does not seem to be good"** Professor Stein said

 **"What happened? Was there another candidate?"** Jax asked.

 **"Yes, and since you kind of blew us off the first time, we had to try something. Professor Stein can die if he does not find a suitable pair for the Firestorm matrix"** Caitlin reiterated the urgency of the matter.

 ** _"See Cait. Sometimes great possibilities are in front of us. We just choose not to see them. I think Jax is going to be that possibility"_** Barry smiled

 ** _"I ... I guess I thought their interests and the fact that they both had something in common would help with the compatibility process. But I was wrong. Maybe it is indeed a union of opposites"_** She took his hand. Professor Stein blacked out again, the energy his body was putting out was already more than the device Cisco made could suppress. Seeing the person in front of him almost dying Jax made a conscience call.

 **"I'll merge with him. Tell me what to do"**

 **"You sure you want to do that? Once it's done the process cannot be undone until the host dies"** Barry asked him

 **"Yes. You said this is a chance for me to be part of something bigger than myself, to help people. That's what I want"** Jax responded without flinching

 **"Put this on your chest and just touch him. You should turn into Firestorm"** Caitlin told him. Jax did exactly that. Stein disappeared and he already had flames around his hands and head. Firestorm was complete again.

 **"Is Professor Stein all right?"** Barry asked.

 **"How will I know?"** Jax responded before hearing a voice in his head.

 ** _"I'm here, Jefferson. The merger made me feel much better"_**

 **"So I get Grey as a copilot"** he smirked

 ** _"Did they forgot to mention that fringe benefit?"_** Jax could hear a chuckle in his head.

 **"So when can I take this out for a spin?"** he asked smirking as the metahuman alarms started blaring in the Cortex.

 **"How about now, Hewitt is recharging from the field lights at your old school"** Cisco said . The tree looked at each other and took off. Flash and Frost made it at the site first and saw the scientist recharging from the night lights that were all around the field. They managed to get everyone out before Jax joined them.

 **"Cisco, can you shut down the power?"** Caitlin asked **"He shouldn't have from where to draw more energy"**

 **"Stand by"** Cisco was hacking the grid and in a few minutes he shut off the lights from the stadium.

 **"Hewitt, stop this"** Barry shouted at him. Jax landed next to the two speedsters being hit by a jet of flames almost immediately

 **"Stein. You chose him?! I was supposed to be the one to have the Firestorm matrix. Why did you choose this kid over me !?"** He was getting visibly angry. Frost hit him with two blasts of ice covering his feet preventing him to move, but the heat radiating off his body made quick work of them. As he was getting angrier, the power of his blasts grew. Firestorm managed to block a few of them with his own powers while Flash and Frost were just annoying him. Taunting him to hit them, which of course he couldn't, not at the slow speed the fire attacks were moving.

 ** _"Barry. It seems that the angrier he gets the more unstable he gets. We need to taunt him more. If we do that he might blow his top"_** Caitlin told him and he nodded.

Hewitt got hit by a few blasts of fire, Frost managed to put a few icicles in his arm. Flash was just hitting him. He was so angry that you could see the reaction getting more unstable around him. The speedsters had to step away, the heat was getting to them, but that didn't stop Jax from hitting him straight in the face with a well-placed punch, making him fall to the ground.

 **"Now this is what I call teamwork"** Barry smiled toward Firestorm.

 **"This is awesome"** Jax exclaimed. Soon enough they had Hewitt locked in the pipeline and Stein and Jax separated without much of a problem. Everything could be done with acceptance of the condition they were both in now.

 **"Barry, I need to take a leave of absence. There is a scientist in Pittsburgh that was instrumental in helping me and Ronald to get a handle on our abilities. I think Jax needs some training and since our merger is new, he has to find out more about our powers and how to use them. So me and Clarissa will be gone for a while"** Professor Stein said.

 **"No worries Professor. Your lab will still be here when you come back"** Barry smiled.

 **"Just curious, but why are you asking for leave time from ... the Flash?"** Jax questioned the whole situation being extremely strange to him

 **"My dear boy, the Flash is a superhero. He does not own anything and has nothing to his name. Barry Allen, however, is the person who owns this lab. Where I work. So even if we have to go, I do have to give him the curtesy to let him know that I will be away for a while"** Stein smiled.

 **"Oh. That makes more sense"** Jax thought while looking at the two scientists that were in the cortex.

 **"Take care of yourselves. Me and Jefferson have to get going"** Stein smiled at the two that were holding hands.

 **"Stay safe. Goodbye you two"** Caitlin responded and Barry waved them off as they flew into the sky.

 **"I'm glad that's over. We managed to save Professor Stein and now he has a pretty good partner. A little young, a little reckless, but a good person nonetheless"** Caitlin smiled toward her boyfriend.

Barry smiled at her. These days everything seemed to be going easier with her around. He didn't think much before he took her in his arms and kissed her lips gently. She didn't object, her hands were around his waist pulling him toward her.

 **"We seriously need a rule that states there will be no make outs in the lab"** Cisco said walking into that scene.

 **"Yes, because you and Bette only make out at home, Cisco"** Barry smiled at his friend who started to blush.

 **"Finished the plans for the speed lab and talked to the contractors. If everything goes well, then everything should be done in less than two weeks"** the engineer was happy about his work.

 **"Any idea on the cost estimates?"** Caitlin asked

 **"Nothing, Mr. Moneybags here can't pay for. A mere 15 million"** Cisco grinned.

 **"Are you seriously going to use that nickname, Cisco?"** Barry knew Cisco was teasing him but the name did kind of annoy him.

 **"Well, if the shoe fits"** he laughed.

 **"Did you and Bette manage to secure the Breach room?"** Barry asked changing the subject. He was not completely happy with the fact that someone from another universe could pop through the back door just like that.

 **"Yes. They have biometric scanners now. Inside and out. You need access to get cleared by the scanners and in case you don't have it someone from the cortex can let you in via a special code. We also changed most of the security in the complex, ever since Jay managed to enter uninvited"** Cisco told his friends

 **"Cisco, keep in mind something. If you feel something is off about someone that enters the building, you can use an excuse for a hello to touch them so you can vibe. That way you can know instantly if the person is a problem or not"** Caitlin said. She and Barry had been helping Cisco get a better handle on his powers. He wasn't there yet, but improvement was something they all needed to do.

 **"Think I should? I mean I don't want to intrude into people's lives like that"** the engineer smiled bitterly.

 **"Not on everyone of course. But you do get ideas or just if the person seems shady do it anyway. Worst case scenario you vibe someone naked running down the streets. Best case, you help us avoid another Harrison Wells"** Barry explained sternly to the engineer. His vibes were the best weapon they could have against people that wanted to betray them.

 **"Yea. I see your point. Well, the reconstruction should start tomorrow so I have to be here. I'd better go home. Have a nice evening you two"** he gave them a shining smile and left the cortex.

 **"Would be nice if we got something to eat"** she smiled.

 **"Sure. You want pizza, take out, those god awful power bars that Cisco keeps making, or maybe we should go out to a proper restaurant and eat"** He proposed a couple of options out of which one actually shined on Caitlin.

 **"Mr. Allen, are you inviting me on a date?"** she grinned at him

 **"Depending on what you choose, yes. I am, Dr. Snow"** his goofy smile making her knees weak.

 **"But, if we want to go to a proper restaurant shouldn't you make a reservation first?"** she asked with a surprised look.

 **"I already did. If we were busy tonight then I would just cancel it. It's not like it's a problem"** He explained.

 **"Then by all means, let's go. How much time do we have?"** she asked.

 **"Another 30 minutes. Should be enough for a couple of speedsters to get home and put on something presentable don't you think? I actually bought you something for such an occasion. It's in your side of the dresser"** her eyes went wide and they both flashed back to her apartment. They took a shower and got dressed. Barry was wearing a dark blue suit, a bit darker than her frost costume and for her, she had something special to wear. A long red sleeveless evening gown, which hugged her curves and was about as tight as her pencil skirts with a cut on the side. When she came out of the bedroom, Barry's jaw fell and his heart started racing in his chest. The woman in front of him was beautiful. A rare cold beauty complemented by the bright red dress and beautiful eyes.

 **"This dress is something else. Thank you. When did you have time to get it?"** she asked.

 **"Time? You know that we have plenty of time when we want to. I bought it today when I went out for coffee"** Barry told her trying to catch his breath.

 **"But how did you know my sizes?"** she asked sheepishly

 **"STAR Labs Files, I have access to your dresser and you keep forgetting I have bought one for you before. It wasn't hard to look up the measurements. Besides , I have … ahem… intimate knowledge of your beautiful body"** he grinned **"Come here, that dress needs something to go with it. Close your eyes"** She went over to him and did as instructed. He pulled a square flat box from somewhere, inside it there was a platinum necklace with rubies on it. The pendant had a familiar shape, it was a snowflake and inside it there was a red flash symbol. The snowflake was composed of blue diamonds and the flash symbol was made of rubies. They complemented the dress beautifully. He took her gently by the hand and left her in front of the mirror while he put the necklace around her neck. **"You can open them now"** he whispered close to her ear, giving her a tingle in her chest. Her face changed instantly seeing the necklace. It was so beautiful and it had something of both of them on it. The look that she gave the beautiful piece of jewelry was that of admiration. She loved the intricate design.

 **"Do you like it?"** Barry smiled toward his partner

 **"I … have no words for it. It's amazing, but ... why would you buy this for me. You know I don't need gifts from you. I'm just happy with you being there with me"** she turned around and gave him a passionate kiss. He responded after they separated

 **"I thought it would be nice you wear my colors for once. Frost seems to be hotter in red than in blue. I made the design of the pendant myself. You could say that our symbols look good together"** He smiled.

 **"If I have to wear your symbol that you have to wear mine"** She joked at him

 **"I already am"** He undid his coat to reveal a tie clip which he put on with the same symbol, only smaller. This whole thing made her smile brightly. Wearing each other's symbols out in the open was a clear statement. He belonged to her and she belonged to him. But a statement only they and their friends would understand.

 **"My, my, Barry Allen, Billionaire spoiling his poor girlfriend"** she started to laugh

 **"Poor? I'm guessing you forgot owning half of STAR West then?"** he looked at her surprised. It actually slipped her mind. Money was not something she thought about often, she had a nice paycheck while she worked at STAR, money which she could never finish due to her workaholic hours and ever since Barry got the labs, money had never been a problem.

 **"I actually did. Wow am I bad boss or what?"** she grinned at Barry.

 **"The worst"** he pulled her in close and kissed her gently to not smudge her make up.

The dinner was simple, even thought it was at the most expensive restaurant in town. Caitlin had no clue that Barry managed to set this up in such a short time, but considering the jewels and the setting, he had been planning that for longer than a few days.

 ** _"This is nice. To be honest with you I never got taken out to an expensive restaurant by anyone in my life. It was all normal bars and places to get something to eat or to get a good glass of wine"_** she thought to him.

 ** _"This is the first time in my life when I took anyone to an expensive restaurant. I had the money before. Living with Joe and not paying almost anything except food, working stupid long hours to try to find my dad's killer and being an all-around workaholic science nerd meant I didn't have much time for a social life. Besides … I never actually wanted to take anyone to such a restaurant because I had no one that would deserve it"_** she could see he told the truth. His eyes were clear and his demeanor was relaxed even though they were in a restaurant full of snobs that were eyeing them intently.

 ** _"So why do I deserve it?"_** she asked interested to hear the answer.

 ** _"You`re always with me risking your life to save innocent people. You were with me when I needed help and when I needed an anchor for my beliefs. Back when I told Oliver to shoot to kill you didn't agree with me. I could see it in your eyes, but you supported me nonetheless. That was something that I appreciated instantly. Being supportive of the person you love even if sometimes you don't like it is … rare"_** he stated looking strangely at the small portion of food in his plate.

 ** _"You saw that huh? Of course I supported you. That's what partners do. You do realize that I wouldn't have done it if it was something that went way over my own beliefs and morals, but you were right in what you said back then. Besides, after thinking about it I came to the same conclusion. So there goes that shadow of doubt"_** her smile was as warming as the sun, but he noticed she was looking weird at the small quantity of food on her plate as well **" _What's bothering you?"_**

 ** _"How do you know something is bothering me?_ "** he asked playfully

 ** _"You have a crease in your brow that accentuates when you`re thinking or worried or just something is bothering you"_ **she told him. He was not surprised at her observation skills, he did manage to observe her tells quite soon.

 ** _"I talked to Joe today after I left with Professor Stein to see Jax. His wife is not dead as you know, but now she told him that she is dying. She has maybe a few months left. Cancer, apparently and she wants to meet Iris. He didn't know if he should go ahead with the meeting or not"_** Barry answered.

 ** _"So, what did you tell him?"_** she gave him an inquisitive look

 ** _"I told him that Iris should meet her mother. Lying about her death was one thing, but if he should keep her from meeting the woman, I suspect Iris would hate him for it. Enough to drive a wedge in the family that might never recover"_** he responded.

 ** _"I think you were right to do so. You know I don't have a good relationship with my mother. But if someone kept me from meeting her and saying good bye while she was dying and wanted to see me, then that person would probably know what it means to see me angry"_** she responded to him and he saw that she was looking around.

 ** _"Are the glares bothering you?"_** she heard a question and responded.

 ** _"Not really, just surprised. We managed to capture the attention of everyone here. This is a very expensive restaurant, only the richest of the rich dine here. Our appearance probably made them wonder who we are"_**

 ** _"Next time I'm renting out the whole place"_** His tone was that of a person that was severely annoyed, even if he wasn't talking.

 ** _"Don't you dare, Barry Allen. Leave them be. Besides, not that I don't appreciate the place, but did you see the portion sizes, I mean come on the food is great but we're not kids either"_** She said with a bit of frustration

 ** _"I know right? We're going to have to go get 10 pizzas to actually meet our caloric requirement for today. I had no idea there was so little food. Maybe next time we can get the 12 course special, but if we do that, I'm definitely renting out the whole thing. I don't want snobs watching us binge like we haven't eaten in a week"_** he continued and she chuckled

They continued to discuss things amongst themselves while the crowd was surprised that the new rich couple in town was not talking at all. The dinner was quiet until both their phones dinged and they saw a message from the automated security system that Cisco installed in the breach room. _"Unauthorized user trying to exit gate room. Fingerprint ID. Harrison Wells"._ They froze looking at the alert. Since they had already finished dinner, Barry paid and they got out of the restaurant, she looked at herself and decided it was better if she was carried. The gown would probably just impede her movements and it was unnecessary for her to run as long as she could be taken there by Barry, at least for tonight. He picked up Caitlin in his arms and sped to the cortex where Cisco had just arrived with Bette. The moment he saw them he whistled.

 **"So this is how rich people spend their dinners huh?"** his eyes and Bette's stopped on her necklace. The bomb defusal expert barely managed to speak seeing it.

 **"Wow. That is … beautiful. Where did you get it?"** she asked.

 **"It was a gift, from Barry"** The doctor responded prompting Bette to give the Flash a smirk **"Enough about that, the alarm you set said that someone is trying to get out of the breach room?"**

 **"Yes, and the ID says it's Harrison Wells"** Cisco added.

 **"Then let's go see"** Barry spoke as him and Caitlin moved toward the breach room. Cisco and Bette weren't far behind. When they reached the secure door they froze. Behind it, Harrison Wells, alive and well, and above all else walking, was trying to redirect the power from the magnetic lock so he could open the door. When he saw the couple he stopped it was obvious he didn't plan on meeting anyone this soon.

 **"So ... can you guys let me out of here or do I have to redirect this whole facility's power grid to talk to you?"** he smirked toward the four people waiting for an answer.


	29. Harry

To Lily : Unlikely. Inspiration is a fickle mistress. Sometimes i have enough ideas to write 3 chapters, other times i struggle with one. I know for a fact that i can come up with at least one chapter a week, no matter how badly stuck i am, which is why i chose this publishing schedule, if i manage to do more, well that's a bonus :)

Also, if you can, please stick with english reviews, i can use google translate for other languages, but ... as you might know the meaning is considerably lost in translation.

Enjoy :)

* * *

The four people were standing in the Cortex looking at the double of Harrison Wells. They could not believe their eyes at the man who was standing in front of them reading his duplicate's autobiography.

 **"Very strange to be reading this. Especially when I wasn't the one to write it"** he scoffed **"And even stranger when it's not even about me"**

 **"So, let me get this straight. You`re the doppelganger of the man who, murdered Barry's mother and is responsible for Ronnie's death and almost getting Eddie killed"** Cisco offered

 **"Yeah, but he's not the double of the Dr. Wells that we knew, because that Dr. Wells was in fact Eobard Thawne that took over his body, who was really the Reverse Flash and Eddie's distant relative from the future. That is annoying to explain in itself, so I advise not even trying to understand it"** Caitlin said with a bit of confusion

 **"Yeah, I didn't really follow any of that. I'm my own man, whatever my double did here, I'm not responsible for it"** he added **"Which means I had nothing to do with the murder of his mom or your friend Ronnie"**

 **"You told me you have proof of your identity?"** Bette interjected

 **"Yes. Run all the tests you want. I'm human and I will probably be indistinguishable from the Wells here, genetically speaking"** he said **"However, this hit me while I came through the breach"** he handed Barry a ball **"Your breach downstairs connects straight to the STAR Labs on my earth"**

 **"So, I'm guessing you didn't travel between dimensions just to meet the Flash?"** Barry added looking at Harry strangely.

 **"That's exactly what I did"** he said **"I came here to help you Barry. Hopefully stop your greatest enemy. The man who keeps sending metas over here to kill you"**

 **"Cisco. You know what to do. We're not going through that again"** Caitlin motioned toward the engineer and he went directly at the new Wells touching him on the back. The sensations of the vibe were starting to get familiar. He saw Zoom holding a girl, him talking to Harry about something and telling him to go through or his daughter dies. The endgame was not revealed but he saw Zoom flashing away as Harry went to the lab and jumped.

 **"He's telling the truth, but also lying. Somehow that doesn't really surprise me, since it seems to be a theme with every Harrison Wells we meet or have known"** Cisco told the group **"He did come here to help, but not for the reasons you think. Zoom has his daughter captive. I didn't see what the discussion was but that is the primary reason Harry is here. He either jumped or his daughter would have died at the hands of that evil guy"**

 **"How did you do that?"** Harry looked at the engineer in surprise.

 **"I have visions when I touch people. So, Harry, how about you tell us the whole story rather than half of it? That's if you want us to help you. Or we can throw you in the pipeline and you can sit there and think about telling us everything for a while"** Cisco answered him, also throwing a veiled threat that seemed to work just fine. He went to sit on a chair, waiting for the response. Harry took a seat as well in one of the empty chairs in the room.

 **"What he said is true. My daughter is being kept by Zoom. The task that I was given by him is to come here, assess your weaknesses and relay them. I am to await further instructions and tasks to complete if Jesse is to stay alive"** He responded with a sigh **"There is of course an alternate reason to why I came. I think the Flash of this world is capable of beating Zoom and I want to help. The Flash of my world was a coward who ran from battle. Zoom kept terrorizing Central City for months until he decided to actually try to take him on. A lot of people died"**

 **"Who is the Flash of your world?"** Barry asked trying to confirm something

 **"He goes by Jay Garrick. Strangely enough I have not found any record of that name anywhere on my Earth, so I can only presume that is an alias. He has been gone for almost 6 months now and I have been trying to find him, even though everyone think he's dead"** Harry responded

 **"That Jay Garrick is here. He helped us build the speed cannon that kept the breach in the basement open"** Caitlin added

 **"So the coward has been hiding out in this world hoping that Zoom won't find him. That's so typical of him"** Harry hissed.

 **"What do you know about Zoom?"** Barry and Caitlin asked almost in tandem

 **"Everything. I created Zoom. In fact I created all the earth 2 metahumans. A fact that I have ignored for way too long. Now I decided to finally do something about it"** He got up again. **"Zoom has only one goal. For there to be no other speedster in the multiverse except him. He will not stop sending these metahumans here to kill you unless we put a stop to it"**

 **"I don't know. The last time we listened to someone with your face, some bad stuff happened"** Cisco cut in

 **"Yes, we lost a people we love because of him"** Caitlin added.

 **"Everyone loses people, Snow. The real test of character is what we do after they are gone. You think it's easy coming here on Zoom's orders to spy on you and wanting to help knowing that if he finds out Jesse will be dead in a matter of seconds?"** he hissed. They weren't paying attention to the door and Joe walked in. In a matter of seconds he took out his gun and let three shots fly toward Wells. Barry and Caitlin barely managed to stop the shots before they hit him

 **"Joe, put the gun down!"** Barry yelled

 **"How are you still alive?"** he asked **"How is he still alive?"**

 **"Because you missed?"** Harry smirked prompting a yell out of Barry.

 **"You. Shut up. You aren't helping. Joe, let's go talk in the hall and I'll explain everything"** Barry told him as they walked out of the cortex.

 **"This isn't the Wells you know. He came here from Earth 2. Jay's earth. We had Cisco vibe him. Zoom has his daughter and he wants us to help him get her back. If that implies us defeating Zoom, then that's included"** Barry told his foster father.

 **"Yeah, but ... how can you look at his face?"**

 **"You know what Joe, I barely can. Every time I see him I just want to punch his face in. But I don't. He's just another man with something very important to lose. For now, we can give him a break"** Barry added.

 **"Ok. Ok. I'd better put Iris up to speed about this guy"** Barry nodded and Joe left. When he got back to the Cortex Cisco and Caitlin were in the Med Bay discussing something. Harry was in a chair, with his head in his hands.

 ** _"If he was indeed sent here by Zoom and Jay is Zoom, shouldn't we keep them apart? Or at least don't let them meet when he's helping us?"_** Barry asked his partner.

 ** _"Harry thinks Jay is the Flash on his world. I doubt he'll be open to that kind of possibility. Besides, you saw how much ire he has for the guy. He called him a coward and detailed his "adventures" on earth two"_** Caitlin replied

 ** _"Maybe he's not a coward. But Harry doesn't know what we do. Of course you couldn't go head to head with yourself. Which is why Jay sounds more and more like he's Zoom every minute"_** Barry agreed

 ** _"Let's let them meet, get whatever they have in their system out, but every time Harry wants to help us, we jettison Jay. That way, if he's indeed Zoom, or maybe some collaborator that got turned, Harry won't get his daughter killed"_** Caitlin smiled toward him from across the room. Cisco and she came back into the Cortex and the engineer froze. He looked like he was in his own little world. Both the speedsters already knew what that meant.

 **"There's another breacher. Central City Bank. Go. Now"** he yelled. Barry and Caitlin suited up and sped out the door prompting Harry's jaw to fall.

 **"So, I take it there's not just one Flash here. Am I correct?"** he looked quite surprised.

 **"We never said there was just one speedster here. You did ask us about the Flash. You never asked anything else about anyone"** Cisco replied.

 **"So, Snow is a speedster too?"** Harry asked regaining his composure.

 **"Yes. By the way, don't relay that to Zoom. Even Jay here still has no idea what Caitlin can do and that might prove to our advantage"** Cisco responded to Wells in a quite demanding tone.

 **"So she's a speedster. That never happened on my world. What other powers does she have?"** Harry asked. **"Yes, off the record"**

 **"Why do you ask?"** Cisco looked at him strangely

 **"Because I want to know? It would help if I knew what I'm working with here"** He looked at Cisco who shrugged.

 **"Ask her. Or better ask them. It's not my secret to tell, besides I'm pretty sure we don't tell everything to people that just managed to show up in our lives. We did that once. It went badly"**

Meanwhile at the Central City Bank and unknown assailant was strolling through the back to the front doors with a large bag of cash. Before she could take another step, Flash and Frost were on the scene. She tried to hit them with light beams which they narrowly avoided. Frost threw some icicles at her, one hitting her helmet that fell off. The very familiar face of Linda Park was looking at them. Barry was shocked. Park saw that the light blasts weren't working so she let out a large blast prompting people to fly around the room from the force.

While the two were busy collecting people so they wouldn't get hurt, the assailant let out a few more light blasts one of which hit Barry straight in the head leaving him flat on the floor. In the commotion, Park managed to escape the bank and Caitlin sped Barry back to the Cortex where she deposited him in the medical bay leaving the helmet she had collected on the one of the tables there.

 **"Hey, you all right?"** she asked him seeing that he was moving.

 **"Yeah, except … I can't see"** The reply came making Caitlin grab a flashlight form the table and shining it straight into his eyes.

 **"Anything?"** she asked.

 **"Nope. Can't see. Not even a glimmer of light or a shadow or anything. It's all black. I would assume that the light blast damaged the light receptors in my retinas?"** He added she helped him go to a station that had eye related equipment on it and looked closer.

 **"Pretty good guess, Dr. Allen. Your retinas are indeed scarred. But they are healing. This should be only temporary"** there was happiness in her voice while she said that.

 **"Mind if I take a look?"** Harry was looming over the machine as well. Caitlin stood up and motioned him to go ahead **"By the degree of damage, I would say it should take him about 8 hours to fully recover his vision"** Harry added which surprised Caitlin

 **"How do you know?"**

 **"It's an estimate based on my own Flash's powers. He had some run ins with this metahuman"** He stood up and went to a console. **"Her name is Dr. Light. She was a small time thief on my world before the accelerator explosion gave her powers. She can now manipulate star light"** He added.

 **"Wow, that's cool"** Cisco cut in.

 **"A star's light has over 5000 degrees and a very high luminosity level. That is not cool"** Wells added.

 **"You know, our doctor Wells might have been an evil speedster from the future, but you`re just a dick"** Cisco hissed

 **"We also found out that she is actually the doppelganger of Linda Park. Iris's reporter colleague"** Caitlin stated.

 **"That was … interesting"** Barry tried to stand up and bumped into the door." **Oops. Sorry"** Caitlin chuckled looking at him apologizing to a piece of wood, moving forward he almost face planted into the Cortex floor but she managed to catch him in time.

 **"Hey. You stay put. Your sight hasn't come back yet"** Caitlin told him.

 **"I can still follow you around, can't I?"** he replied taking her hand.

 **"So … this is another metahuman that Zoom sent here to kill Barry"** Caitlin sighed.

 **"Yes, but now we can use that to our advantage. We capture Dr. Light and we use her to bait Zoom to come here"** Harry said.

 **"Are you nuts?"** a voice came from the entrance of the Cortex **"You cannot bring Zoom here"** Jay came in followed as usual by Bette. Caitlin was changed out of her frost outfit but Barry was still in his, because he was blind.

 **"Oh. It's you"** Harry hissed. **"You know, on my earth, the Flash has been dead for the last 6 months and Zoom has been carrying out a campaign of terror against the people of Central City. Why am I not surprised to find you here? Hiding out again, Mr. Garrick? After all the times I've helped you, and the drugs, the time you lost your speed and the countless times you almost died. Because of you Zoom kidnapped my daughter, I was the one that kept helping you against him so he decided to take the most important thing in my life. And where were YOU when that happened? You were hiding, all well that ends well ,on this earth. So don't tell me what I can or cannot do, go back to your hole, you coward. You don't deserve to call yourself anything except Wuss"** Harrison shouted at him. Jay tried to lunge at him only to be stopped by Bette.

 **"Don't you talk to me like that. I battled him till I was almost dead. I lost my speed and the singularity brought me here. I have had no way to come back to my earth and even then, I'm just a normal human now. You don't get to call me a coward to my face without knowing what I've been through"** Jay replied.

 **"This blind kid over here is way faster than you. He has more scars and has been through way more. Get out of here, Garrick. You`re just a relic of an age that passed the time Zoom started killing people looking for you and you did NOTHING"** Harry spewed poison at him. Caitlin could see the disdain Wells had for this man **"I saw the discussions, I saw the readouts of Barry's speed while I was waiting here. Why was he giving you pointers, Barry? You should be training him. You can run at least 3 times faster than this slowpoke"** Jay this time managed to get free and punch Harry in the face hard cracking his lip. Without thinking twice Bette shot him with a tranquilizer dart and he fell asleep

 **"Bette, take him to the cell we prepared for Eobard. Just as a precaution"** Caitlin told her and she nodded motioning for Cisco to help her. Barry had heard everything and without his sight he could have sworn that Jay's heart rate spiked way above that of a normal human when Harry called him names.

 **"So… Harry, I see that you have quite a lot of background with Jay"** Barry responded.

 **"Yes, I do and he is someone that I never want to see again. Every time I see his face it reminds me of my failures as a father and his as a hero"** Harry sat down wiping his cracked lip.

 **"So … how do we bait Zoom then?"** Barry asked.

 **"We first need to capture Dr. Light. Then ask her, nicely or not so much why is she here. After that we can see what the plan will be. You ok with that?"** Wells asked.

 **"Yes. We do need to find out what happened. But we don't know where Light is right now and I'm still blind as a bat"** Barry said with a bit of disdain in his voice.

 **"Your eyesight will come back. You just need to take a rest. When its back Cisco can vibe her from the helmet you brought back and just go and capture her"** Harry stated bluntly. **"Go home, get some sleep. We'll get her in the morning. I'm going to start working on some things that might help you with Zoom. I saw that this lab has biometric access to most of the areas. Can I get access to my lab so I can start working? Who's the owner?"**

 **"That would be me"** Barry told him and his face turned to surprise **"I'll talk to Bette. You tell her which lab is yours and she will give you the access. We already have the other Harrison's fingerprints in our database so that should work just fine"** He nodded. **"Harry, you know the layout of the land in Earth 2 right?"**

 **"Yes. Why do you ask?"** Wells was surprised this Barry actually cared.

 **"While you work make a plan to get your daughter out as well. Now you`re forced to work for Zoom and we kind of get that. But we can't let you do crazy shit on his command either. So if he tells you to kill someone and you can't, I would rather you not lose your daughter"** the Flash told him quite bluntly.

 **"Why do you care? Didn't you say that I was the bad guy here?"** Wells asked.

 **"Yes, we did say that. But not even a bad guy deserves to have his daughter kidnapped. Sure, if you screw us over we'll make sure you never see the light of day again. But at least you'll be there sitting in the dark and knowing your daughter is alive and safe"** Caitlin completed Barry's thoughts. Harry nodded and left to look for Bette. He was surprised, even though he was a dick to everyone and acted like a high and mighty asshole, those two thought that he still deserved help. While they said that if he tries anything he will be put away, at least his Jesse would be safe and that was completely ok with him. It was pretty late so Caitlin flashed Barry home and they both went to sleep after she got tired of him bumbling around to get dressed and dressed him herself with her speed.

Harry was working in the lab that Bette gave him access to. The music was loud and he was checking about his double's life on this earth when Cisco came in.

 **"You know, our wells at least had better music tastes"** Cisco grinned

 **"The Harrison Wells here and I are different but eerily similar. I see he did almost the same mistake I did with the particle accelerator"** Harry concluded

 **"Except he did it on purpose. We found out that he made it blow in order to create the Flash"** Cisco explained. **"He did a lot of terrible things, but none of them were by mistake, they were very much planned"**

 **"Tell me, Cisco. What did he do to you?"** Harry looked at Cisco who could not look him in the eye. **"I already know the rest. He caused the singularity, he murdered Barry's mother and inadvertently killed Snow's brother. But what did he do to you?"** Harry came closer staring right at the engineer. **"Cisco. You can barely look me in the eye when I talk. Now tell me. What did he do to you? "**

 **"He shoved his hand in my chest and stopped my heart. It was a very … not cool experience"** Cisco finally managed to tell him

 **"Ok. Wow. That would do it. But … how did you survive?"** he asked looking strangely at the engineer.

 **"Barry travelled back in time and erased that timeline. My memories remained probably because I was a metahuman even back then"** Cisco answered

 **"I see. That makes sense. Barry travelled back in time. Look Cisco, here's how it is. You don't have to like me and I don't have to like you. With that said however you have to work with me to stop Dr. Light and ultimately Zoom. Can you do that even if my face reminds you of the man who killed you?"** Harry asked him bluntly.

 **"I guess we'll see, won't we"** the engineer moved to the exit.

 **"One more thing. Did you manage to re task the STAR labs satellite? I want to see if your program will work"** Harry started his grandstanding again

 **"Don't worry. It will work"** Cisco left him alone with his thoughts.

In the morning Barry woke up in their bed feeling her next to him. It was pretty early and the light coming from the crack in the drapes was pretty blinding. He rubbed his eyes with his free hand, the other one being used by Caitlin as a pillow. He could see clear as day the beautiful woman that was sleeping next to him. He smiled asking himself how could he be so lucky and he got an unexpected answer.

 ** _"Because it wasn't luck, Barry. Good morning"_ **he saw Caitlin turn around and move from his hand to the pillow. His green eyes met hers and she could swear that they were darker than before.

 **"Then what was it, Cait?"** he smiled

 **"Fate? Don't ask me, but it sure wasn't luck. I know that because I've never been lucky at anything in my life. At least until I met you"** she smiled back **"Can you see? Are your eyes all right?"** she asked.

 **"Yes. I'm fine. Harry apparently was right about the time it took them to recover"** He replied

 **"What do you think about him?"** she asked getting out of the bed.

 **"I really don't know. He told us his whole story only after Cisco vibed him. I have no idea if he would ever have told us the truth otherwise. He does genuinely seem to want to help, but I cannot be sure of his reasons. His daughter however is captive, I do understand that he wants to do everything he can for her to be safe. I'm a bit torn between those two points of view sadly"** the speedster got out of bed putting on a pair of pants and flashing to the kitchen to put on some coffee. She went to the bathroom to brush her teeth and noticed that one of her earrings was missing. But she did not turn into her super hero persona. She took the other earring off and her visage remained the same. He decided to ice one of her hands and the moment she did her hair turned to its white color and her eyes steel blue. When she stopped using her powers, her form returned to normal with a thought. While she loved the earrings that Cisco made for her, this meant that she would only have to wear them when she wanted her powers suppressed. Otherwise she had full control over her transformation into Frost. That made her extremely happy. She put on the earrings again and went to the kitchen after him after putting on one of his shirts, which for some reason was too big for her and it left out about half her shoulder.

 **"If Cisco is right and Zoom indeed has his daughter then his ultimate reason would be for him to keep her alive and ultimately save her. Wouldn't that be the goal of any parent?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"I don't know. But I would suppose so"** Barry responded. The two looked at each other and sighed. The coffee was ready and they spent a little time showering and getting ready. Barry grabbed Caitlin in his arms and they flashed back to STAR. There they found Cisco working in the Cortex early morning, which prompted Barry to speed back to Jitters and get him coffee. It had appeared he had worked all night. He was monitoring the light emissions across the city with their satellite.

 **"Did anything turn up?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"Nothing. My guess is that wherever she is she didn't use her powers and without that she is simply a normal human. Which the satellite can't pick out from a crowd, even with Felicity's face recognition program, scanning a city is next to impossible"** He responded and the saw the coffee on his desk after Barry flashed in **"I love my job. My boss brings me coffee instead of the other way around"**

 **"Shut up"** Barry slapped his back gently **"Mr. Executive Director"** All three started to laugh at the usage of their **"weird"** titles. They might have been the highest rank of people that were running the labs right under Barry. But they were never less than his partners and friends. Titles didn't matter with them. After a few hours of not managing to find anything, Barry came up with an idea.

 **"Cisco, we have her helmet. Can you try vibing that? Maybe you can at least an idea where we can start the face recognition"**

 **"All right. It's worth a shot. I'm sad that you had to think about that and not me"** Cisco scoffed. He took the helmet in his hands and nothing happened. **"ok, this is … definitively not working. I wonder why"** He asked out loud.

 **"Maybe you need to clear your mind, or meditate or something"** Barry quipped.

 **"I vibed as soon as I touched Harry that time so ... I don't know"** he said that but as soon as he held up the mask again, he felt himself vibe. He was in a train station, the number 15 on it and Dr. Light was wearing a black trench coat trying to get on the train. **"South side plaza train station. Platform 15. She's wearing a black trench coat"**

Flash and Frost wasted no time in getting to where their friend saw the villain. But the platform was full of people. The two managed to get everyone out and just leave her sitting on the platform alone. She started to fire at the two heroes. The rapid fire light bursts were keeping them getting closer to her.

 ** _"Barry. What happens if we run from place to place and just remain for a second or two while we move? Shouldn't we be able to create after images of ourselves?"_** she asked remembering the way she seemed to be in three places at once when Barry was with Snart's dad.

 ** _"You mean like speed clones of ourselves to confuse her?"_** he responded.

 ** _"Yes. Something like that. Let me try and you can copy what I do if it works"_** she started to run from place to place. Soon there seemed to be two of her. Then three then five. Light was trying to hit the afterimages and missing them. She got annoyed and used a blast of light around her that almost hit Frost. Barry started doing the same, but they figured she could do the blast wave again so the originals were far away from her.

They kept that up for a while trying to see just how many clones of themselves they could put out, but after a while they got bored and while the flash attacked her head on, Frost hit her from behind knocking her out. After a little bit they were back in the pipeline locking her up. Caitlin made sure to not use her speed or any sort of powers in front of Jay, but Cisco had made sure that his cell was not transparent. So for now Caitlin's secret was safe. The engineer already was smiling.

 **"So… now you can make speed mirages huh?"**

 **"Apparently so"** Barry pulled a joke, he smiled, he made a series of signs with his hands knowing Cisco would notice what he did and started running around. Until there were about 15 of him in the room of moving up on Cisco.

 **"Wait did you sign what I think you did? That is cool. I'm guessing they are only images, right?"** he smiled

 **"Cisco, you`re been watching too much Naruto, only you'd be able to recognize what seals I signed. Of course they are only images"** Barry retorted at him causing him to chuckle.

 **"Says the nerd that knows the seals by heart"** Cisco started to laugh while the speedster was rubbing the back of his neck whistling

 ** _"Barry, we need to talk to Dr. Light. Find out what happened and why she came here"_** Caitlin told him in her mind

 ** _"Yea. Something tells me she might be more talkative after she wakes up. Want to get some food? I'm starving. The speed mirages take a lot out of us apparently"_** He replied

 ** _"How did you know I was hungry?"_** she quipped kissing him and he chuckled.

 **"Cisco. Want to get some food at Jitters?"** she asked after they separated from their kiss.

 **"Yea. I was thinking maybe I should actually talk to the nice waitress that showed interest in me the other day"** the engineer smiled. They all flashed near Jitters and went inside.

 **"Aren't you with Bette?"** Barry asked a bit confused.

 **"It's … complicated. Everything was going so well and then she went all green eyed on me. Back the same morning Kendra said hello actually"** He thought to himself.

 **"So basically what you`re saying is your actual girlfriend is jealous at another girl that flirted with you and ... now you`re going to talk to said girl again. I hope you want your stuff intact because something tells me Bette won't be happy about that"** Barry chuckled.

 **"That's not it. I want to tell Kendra that I already have a girlfriend and she shouldn't flirt with me when I'm in here with her. The last time she did … it wasn't pretty. Bette is a wonderful person, but sometimes has a … short fuse, you know?"** Cisco explained a bit

 **"Actually I don't. Nobody flirts with me so ... I've never had that issue** " Barry scratched the back of his head.

 **"Yeah. They do flirt with you, but you`re too oblivious to see"** Caitlin smiled holding his hand.

 **"I am? Oh. Well why would I care who flirts with me and I got the woman I want right next to me?"** Barry kissed her on the cheek.

 **"Oh great, more Disney romance"** Cisco cracked starting to laugh and the three sat at a table.

After they ordered, Kendra came to their table with the food and drinks. When she was putting the food down Cisco touched her for a moment and froze. The waitress was surprised but Caitlin and Barry knew what was up. He then got out of it, threw her a winning smile and turned to his friends

 **"What did you see?"** Caitlin whispered

 **"I saw a woman, wearing a hawk mask ... with metal armor and wings. It looked like she was some sort of … priestess or something"** Cisco looked pretty distraught.

 **"Wow, that's trippy"** Barry looked at him.

 **"That's not all I saw. There was some guy with a staff after her. Trying to kill her. But I am not sure how or why. The staff didn't look menacing, just some old piece of jewelry"** the engineer continued

 **"But, why would that vibe come off Kendra? I mean she's a barista at Jitters. Pretty sure she hasn't or ever will be anything compared to what you just described"** Caitlin said incredulously

 **"I have no idea. You know I don't know in detail how the vibes work yet"** Cisco looked at the two while they were practically inhaling their food. He ate as well still thinking about what he saw when he touched the girl behind the bar.

They finished just in time as Barry's phone beeped. It was a message from Bette who was still at STAR keeping an eye on the cortex. **"Light's awake".** That is what they wanted, they finished everything and Barry picked up the tab as they flashed back to STAR.


	30. Light

Barry and Caitlin were down in the pipeline. He wore his outfit while she didn't. Her transformation was pretty radical which means the villain had no way of knowing who she was. The two thought head anyway and decided it would have been better to not let anyone in on who Caitlin is. Harry already knew but from that perspective he swore to keep his mouth shut because the two were trying to save his daughter as well. Light had woken up and they wanted to talk to her. Iris told him a few things about her doppelganger from this earth so they thought they could sway a deal.

 **"So, what did Zoom send you to do here?"** Caitlin asked bluntly

 **"What else. I was supposed to kill the Flash, except I didn't want to. I'm a thief, not a murderer or an assassin for hire"** She said quite annoyed

 **"So you tried to kill Linda Park instead? How was that a good idea?"** Barry asked

 **"Linda Park is my double. All I had to do is kill her, switch identities and Zoom would think I was dead. I would have been free and even if I was in a new world, I wouldn't have to be looking over my shoulder every time"** she scoffed.

 **"But how would he know that you were either dead or that you had completed your mission?"** Caitlin questioned

 **"I was supposed to throw your new emblem through the breach. Then he would come, verify the kill and take me home. Except with him in control, I don't know if I want to go home anymore"** Light said with a bit of a dark glimmer in her eyes.

 **"Would you be willing to help us stop Zoom?"** Barry asked pretty straight forward.

 **"You? You can't stop zoom. You`re too slow. He could dodge my light beams consistently and never get hit. I did hit you once remember?"** Light grinned.

 **"I would be willing to try to stop Zoom. With your help"** Barry made his point pretty clear. She sat there and considered it for a while then nodded.

 **"All Right. I'll help but what happens if this plan fails? He'll know I turned on him and kill me"** She explained her situation

 **"You can't kill me. So… how is that situation different from him killing you for defection, except if we follow my plan there is a chance of success and you live. So ... what will it be?"** Barry asked

 **"Or maybe you prefer to spend all your remaining life here in the pipeline"** Caitlin added

 **"To be honest, even spending the rest of my life in this rat hole would be preferable to me returning home under Zoom's rule"** She responded shocking the two **"Yeah. I'll help. The only thing that might give me a chance to live is your plan."** She agreed.

The two returned to the Cortex to tell the others what they managed to find out. Of course Light couldn't be trusted, but they had bet on her self-preservation instinct above all else. She could not complete her mission and Zoom would have found her even if she ran away. She was dead no matter how you looked at it.

 **"So, Light agreed to help us"** Barry announced

 **"You mean help you to lure Zoom in? With what?"** Cisco asked.

 **"Can you make me an emblem similar to the one I have? No tech no nothing in it just a simple emblem. She has to throw it in the breach to get the speedster to come there"** Barry inquired to his friend.

 **"Sure I can. I always have an emblem with tech ready in case ... you know, you blow up the suit again"** Cisco quipped.

 **"Dude. Wasn't my fault the first time. Let it go"** Barry hissed.

 **"I have been working on some things on earth two that could help you Barry. One is a serum that will dampen his speed and second a device that will drain his speed away. Initially I was supposed to steal your speed with it and give it to him, but I think it has merit, even if it's to just weaken him"** Harry replied.

 **"Joe, do you think this is a good idea?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"No. I don't, but at least there's a plan involved, so it wouldn't hurt to give it a try"** He smiled **"That's if Harry here can deliver his part of the bargain that is "**

 **"Don't worry about me, detective. I'll do it. Now all we need is for Ramon over there to come up with some sort of weapon that can deliver the payload into Zoom's system"** Harry added.

 **"Zoom seems to be way faster that Barry or myself. We can both catch bullets so why would any sort of gun be useful. Couldn't he just pluck the dart out of the air before it reached him?"** Caitlin asked with worry on her face.

 **"Element of surprise. He won't be expecting it at all especially if we throw it at him right before he goes out of the breach. Harry you said about a device that can drain his speed. Can we adjust that and put it so that a Containment cell has the same effects?"** Barry asked.

 **"Of course, but he can vibrate through solid matter, so how can we keep him in?"** Harry asked

 **"We made a cell for the Reverse Flash last year. Its solid but there is a magnetic current that runs through it which prevents cells from losing cohesion. The more he vibrates, the more speed the containment cell will have to drain, even if he gets out he will be slower, at which point it might be easier for us to capture him"** Caitlin answered.

 **"We still have the nanites that I reprogrammed for Eobard. If we can include them in Harry's serum then it will further drain his powers at least enough for you to catch him"** Cisco remembered about that formula as well.

 **"Show me, Ramon. Maybe we can do something that will completely stop him. At least for a while"** Harry motioned for the engineer to join him.

They measured their options. The plan was good but there were still enough unknowns. Harry was the only one that had the knowledge on Zoom and Joe did not trust him. Just like the team didn't trust him. Relying on Dr. Light for her help wasn't something they wanted as well. While he might have been accepting of their plan she could turn on them at any second and they were aware of it.

That night they tried to put their plan into action. Barry had told Caitlin to not use her Ice powers at all to maximize her speed. She was hold up around where the Flash and Dr. Light were mock battling. Of course he let her win and she grabbed the secondary emblem that Cisco gave her and threw it through the breach. They were expecting Zoom, except nobody came. The jig was up somehow the plan didn't work. Dr. Light immediately escaped to go into hiding while the others returned to STAR labs. Barry had put a tracker on her to keep aware of her movements.

 **"Well, that was anticlimactic"** Cisco was annoyed that nobody showed up.

 **"Maybe Zoom actually believes the Flash is dead and didn't even bother to come look at the body?"** Caitlin said with hope in her voice.

 **"Not Likely. He might be a psychopath but he's definitely not stupid. We should expect him to come around sooner rather than later"** Harry said coming out of his workspace

 **"There is something I want to run over by you Barry"** Cisco pulled him aside

 ** _"Get over here. What are you doing on that side of the lab?"_** Barry told Caitlin

 ** _"He did tell you to go not me. Maybe he needs advice on women"_** Caitlin chuckled and went over to Cisco and Barry

 **"That telepathic thing still weirds me out"** Cisco made a grimace. **"Anyway this concerns both of you. I just told Barry to come over since he usually calls you"** He grinned. **"I can make a volatile solution of the nanites that we reprogrammed for speed dampening. While the serum that Harry is making will probably affect all speedsters, what I have in mind as security will probably keep us safe in the instance that Zoom follows you here"**

 **"What do you have in mind, Cisco?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"We make the nanites in mist form. They should be able to interact with the cells of a speedster and seeing that they will be in the air. Even if they manage to vibrate them out of their system, they will still be infected the next time they breathe. Also we can code a genetic rejection algorithm in the nanites that will tell them not to attack you two. In the event that Zoom comes here, the Lab will fumigate the entire area releasing the nanites. When they reach human blood or the blood of a speedster that has been blacklisted from their actions, the bots will deactivate and decompose. But if they find a suitable target, they will go to work as fast as zoom can run from the entrance to the cortex"** Cisco said proudly

 **"Whoa"** Barry exclaimed **"You can really do all that?"**

 **"Yep. It's already in the works. Thank you for having me make that extra batch of bots. Now they can be ready for deployment in less than a few minutes and their programming is almost complete. Are your genetic codes still in the STAR Labs computer?"** he asked.

 **"Of course. Cisco, I would ask that you put another function in the bots"** Barry asked silently.

 **"Sure. What did you think about?"** the engineer asked.

 **"Can you make them power suppressant as well? Also maybe add a small electric shock that would disable the person on command"** Barry asked with a steeled look in his eyes. Caitlin was surprised at his request.

 **"Why would we need those?"**

 **"Simple. We can flood the cells in the pipeline with the bots. Since they will be power suppressors in case the cells fail they will not be able to escape also determining which body they are in via their genetic structure we can devise a grid that they will not be able to get out of without being rendered unconscious. Call it a … secondary security system in case STAR is without power"** The Flash stated and Caitlin was once again surprised at how far he had thought ahead. There were metahumans that managed to escape the pipeline after the singularity had struck and Barry did not want that to happen again.

 **"Barry, I like how you think. That way we'll be safe and we won't be having a Black Out moment again. I'll get to work right on that"** the engineer said

 **"Later, that is a secondary priority Cisco. We need to be able to stop Zoom if he comes after us. So when you managed to make them work for speedsters, deploy them. You will have plenty of time to modify them after we take care of that guy. How long do you need to make the adjustments?"** Barry added to his friend who nodded.

 **"For the speedster slower? None"**

 ** _"You thought about this a lot before asking Cisco didn't you?"_** Caitlin thought at him

 ** _"I have. It's not something I like doing but if this facility is going to function as a lab as well as a prison, we should be sure that whoever works here is safe in any and all circumstances. That includes power outages or evil speedsters that come through the front door"_** He smiled back

 ** _"Come here. I want to show you something"_** She smiled dragging Barry into the corridor and handing him the earrings.

 ** _"Wait, why did you take these off and ... how are you not turning into Frost?"_ **Barry looked at her with an inquisitive eye

 ** _"It appears that after all the run through I have given my powers after fighting bad guys with you, I am now able to control the cosmetic transformation from my normal form into Frost's. I will still wear the earrings to dampen my powers so that I heal faster and run faster of course. But now I can wear something else when we go out or we need to dress nicely without the fear that I will change"_ **Caitlin added visibly excited about the new measure of control that came with her powers.

 ** _"Can you keep out of the Frost form in case you need to use your powers and not be seen?"_** Barry was thinking about all the possibilities

 ** _"No. not yet. But I assume that with time it will be possible. I just have to try more. For now I'm still going to wear the earrings, but it's nice to know that I won't turn into Frost if something malfunctions"_** She quipped. Barry took her in his arms and kissed her softly. She held onto him like she was holding on to life and in a way it was true. He was her life now. Their life.

 ** _"Congratulations. I didn't even know you could do that. I'm glad that you can control your powers better and you are visibly pleased that you don't have to wear the earrings now all the time as I can see and with a bit of luck, you won't be needing them at all in the future. I knew you could do it, Cait. You`re one of the strongest women I know, it was just a matter of time before you overcame this little … issue"_** Barry smiled at her while she put back her earrings. They walked back hand in hand toward the Cortex only to have the metahuman alarm blare on them.

 **"Guys, Zoom is after Linda Park. He thinks she's Dr. Light"** Cisco told them. They both flashed into their suits and moved to the scene. They did recognize the speedster from Barry's flashes. He wore a black mark that looked like a demon, his lightning was blue and he was definitely faster than Barry.

 **"Flash"** he grumbled running straight at him. Barry didn't run at him, he stepped aside and charged a lightning bolt that he threw toward the speedster. To his surprise, Zoom caught the bolt and sent it back toward him hitting him straight on and knocking him into a pole. The impact was pretty bad, but when Zoom was on top of him another bolt thrown by Frost hit him and sent him tumbling.

 **"How are there two of you!"** his grumbled voice almost screamed **"Nobody told me there were two Flashes on this Earth. I'm going to have so much fun with you"** He ran toward Frost only to be met by the Flash's fists. While the two were fighting Frost was looking for an exit to stick Zoom with the serum that Harry and Cisco put together. She didn't see Zoom throwing the Flash toward her. Barry had been pretty beat up in the time that she took to make her move, his lip was cut and he bled from an eyebrow. The two speedsters started to attack Zoom again, both looking for openings to give him the slowing injection.

He was getting mad. Out of nowhere he started to throw small pebbles at the two, but the speed that he was putting into them turned them into bullets. They managed to avoid the bulk of them, but a few were going straight at her. Flash managed to catch some of them, but he wasn't paying attention. One of the pebble bullets struck him in the back. He immediately fell to the ground in pain. She saw what happened and returning the attack she grabbed him and sped toward STAR.

He was fast, and she was slower because of having to carry the Flash, but she got enough of a head start that she got to the labs first. True to his word Cisco had already managed to finish the programming for the bots. He stopped in the Cortex looking at Frost putting Barry on a bed. That was his mistake, from the back Cisco shot him with one of the suppressor darts, making him fall to the ground. The bots were working and so was the concoction, but they saw Zoom taking something out of his belt and injecting it into his leg. In a few seconds he managed to get up and flashed out the door seemingly in pain.

 **"Barry, are you all right?"** Caitlin asked him

 **"Cait, I can't feel my legs and I'm having trouble breathing"** Barry replied as Caitlin's face went dark with the realization

 **"I need to X ray you. Now!"** she yelled while getting the portable machine from the other side of the lab

 **"Let me guess. Broken spine?"** Barry gave her a weak smile while trying to breathe properly

 **"Yes, fracture right above L1. You still have that jagged pebble he threw in you. I need to take it out. It's nowhere near your spine, thank god for that. It's lodged in a rib"** She replied feeling her heart go in her throat.

 **"Do it. If the pain is too much I'll just pass out"** he told her squeezing her hand. She wanted to cry but couldn't. She steadied her hand and cut into his abdomen above where the rock was. He was already out before she could insert a clamp to get the debris. After that was out she closed the wound with bio staples. It was something she designed based on early work that Barry did while she was in her coma. Hard staples made out of proteins that would nourish the tissue that it was holding together and promote healing while disappearing. That way Barry had it easier in case she had to be treated and nobody had to worry about leaving material in the skin. The stitches would dissolve by themselves. Cisco had left the Cortex during the operation. The engineer had seen much in his life and yet he still never managed to get rid of his gore issue. After the operation was done she turned to the X-ray and examined it while keeping an eye on Barry.

 **"Damn. We didn't catch him. Now I'm going to lose Jesse for sure"** Harry was almost wailing.

 **"No you won't. Even if he did see you, he still needs you. You saw how he ran after we shot him. He will task you to find out what we did and give him a counteractant. I'm betting my life on that fact"** Caitlin said with a bit of exasperation in her voice.

 **"You`re right, Snow. I didn't think of that. He realized that we have something that can slow him. Now let's see if he tries to contact me"** Harry said calming a bit down **"How is he?"**

 **"His spine is broken. To be perfectly honest I don't even know if he can recover from something like that. He needs to sleep"** Caitlin said with a remorseful look **"He saved me. I know he wanted to but, somehow, I feel a bit responsible"**

 **"Snow, don't. The moment you take guilt for something you have no control over, that moment begins your undoing. We both know he wanted to save you. What would you expect from someone who loves you like he does?"** Harry said in his usual snarky tone.

 **"How do you even know that?"** Caitlin looked at him crooked.

 **"I have a kid. I have had someone who I loved like you love each other and to be honest I'm not blind. I might be a dick like Cisco keeps saying, but I am far from stupid. Stop feeling responsible for his injury and help him recover"** Wells answered.

 **"I don't even know if he will recover after this"** She stated truthfully. This was a case that to someone normal meant that they would never walk again. She had studied with Barry the effect of healing on their bodies, but never on nerve tissue regeneration. Right now it was all a gamble.

 **"He will. If you don't believe me keep taking images of his spine. You'll see that it will start to realign itself and heal"** Harry told her.

 **"I will"** she changed into her normal clothes and took the same chair that Barry slept in all those months and took a book **"I'll be staying with him until he wakes up"**

 **"What happens if Zoom tries to contact me to give him a counter agent?"** He immediately asked realizing they did not have a plan

 **"Simple, you give him a counter agent. Which will be another series of nanobots. Have Cisco program them to work exactly like the others. They will be inert in his system until we activate them or he comes near the lab"** Caitlin retorted

 **"But If I give him that counter agent and it doesn't work. He might harm Jesse"** His worry was showing.

 **"Did you make that plan that Barry asked you to save your daughter?"** the bio engineer asked without lifting her gaze from the picture in her hand.

 **"Almost done with it. There are some pieces missing but some data we can only gather once we jump universes. I can't get more data from the earth 2 metahumans than I already have"** Wells answered.

 **"Good. You go work on that and leave the minimum amount of research required for when we'll go to the other universe. After Barry has recovered we'll go over that plan and implement it as soon as we have a bit of time. We're going to get your daughter out. Understand?"** she said raising her gaze and Harry saw the resolve she had.

 **"Yes. Want me to tell Cisco to relieve you after a while?"** Harry asked not showing his concern for the speedster even though it was there.

 **"No. I'll manage. Have him come to the Cortex though. I want to talk to him about those new nanobots that Barry asked him to develop"** Caitlin responded as harry left back to his lab after he delivered the message to the engineer.

Cisco came back to the lab after Harry had delivered Caitlin's message. It did take him about an hour because he was fiddling with the nanobots. He entered slowly not wanting to get in the sight or Barry being cut open yet again.

 **"Hey, Caitlin. How is he?"** Cisco asked coming over to the bed

 **"He's doing better. His spine is broken. I don't know if he'll walk again. Harry mentioned that he might heal, but I'm not so sure based on what I know. We will just have to see how all of this plays out"** She responded. **"But that isn't why I wanted to talk to you. It's about what we were discussing earlier. The bots?"**

 **"Yea. What about them?"** the engineer asked.

 **"Could we include a … kill command in them?"** she asked with blank eyes.

 **"Kill command? As in if we want we can tell the bots to self-destruct? That would be pointless, they already do that if they are in the wrong person"** the engineer responded.

 **"That was not what I meant"** Caitlin answered and Cisco made wide eyes. **"I mean for the bots to actually kill the person they are inside of. Like a terminate switch, in case all else fails"** The way she put it made Cisco turn cold for a bit. Before this had happened they would have never considered killing anyone and now she was asking him about a kill switch.

 **"That will not be necessary. We aren't judge, jury and executioner, Cait"** Barry said from the bed. He had woken up but kept his eyes closed to listen to his surroundings.

 **"Are you sure about that?"** she asked almost snapping at him, but realizing she had no reason to. He was trying to keep to the code they both adhered for as long as they had been heroes, she however was frustrated and angry about his injuries.

 **"Yes I am. We are heroes. I don't expect us to kill anyone. The only reason I would see to do that is if they manage to escape which considering I asked Cisco to put non-lethal ways of stopping whoever tries to exit here and is from the Pipeline, killing them would be pointless. Why use a kill command when they would probably be unconscious the moment they step out of the pipeline?"** Barry asked calmly from the bed.

 **"I guess you`re right"** She backed down. She instantly saw that it was her anger speaking. She wasn't like that either, but seeing Barry in that bed not being able to move after she had to cut him open, made her really angry. She didn't want to go through that again **"How's your breathing?"**

 **"Still a bit difficult. But that's to be expected with spinal injuries"** He answered just like another doctor would. He knew what he would have to endure.

 **"Cisco, something happened. I felt like the bots weren't working on Zoom. Did you manage to find out why?"** Barry asked he wanted to raise his bed but thought it would be a good idea not to move to give his spine time to realign itself.

 **"They did work. But from my test results on the bot's input and output, whatever he injected into his system gave him a tremendous boost of power. The nanites didn't manage to start draining him of it before he managed to run out of the coverage area of the signal. I did manage to get a structural sample of the compound in the injection. Before he ran out of the coverage area one of the bots came in contact with it and it sent out the data it could collect on it"** Cisco got his tablet and showed Caitlin the image of a foreign compound.

 **"This doesn't seem something like we would make"** While she said that Harry was coming into the cortex to gather some of his data and Caitlin motioned him over **"Harry, do you have any idea what this compound is?"** Wells looked at the screen and his mouth fell.

 **"This is Velocity. It was the drug that I gave Jay Garrick when he lost his powers. But this is an unfinished version. I could never figure out how to make it non-lethal to humans"** Wells commented.

 **"Tell me, what effects would it have on a speedster? Can you extrapolate from your findings and tests?"** Barry asked.

 **"I do not know. The drug is designed to give someone more oxygen as they run. That way the body doesn't run out of power. It works through the heat that a speedster normally generates through lightning and releases oxygen into the cells and bloodstream. That oxygen is in turn used to make the person faster. With a normal person it works just the same, except using the heat in their cells while they run to give them more speed"** Harry explained.

 **"So in theory, it could make a speedster run even faster than normal"** Caitlin asked.

 **"Yes, although I did not design it as such, I still have no idea where Zoom got his hands on this. The only sample was in a locked room in my STAR. The walls were thick and very dense, specifically made for a speedster to not be able to phase through them and the speedster sensors would go off anyway and destroy the remaining samples"** Wells responded with genuine confusion on his face.

 **"I see . Could it be possible that is the reason Zoom is so much faster than us?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"Yes, of course. The amount of speed velocity gives you is proportional to what your body can put out, which means if you can run at 800 mph the solution will give you about 40% more speed. But nobody has used it long term so I don't know what the effects might be"** Wells responded. **"I'm going to go run some simulations and see what I come up with"**

Caitlin nodded and remained by Barry's side. Cisco went back to his lab and continued his work on the nanites. He wanted to make the security of the lab of utmost importance. The crews managed to rebuild the roof and now STAR was a closed building. No way in or out except the main door which had biometric scanners.

 ** _"How does it look?"_** Barry asked her mentally after she finished taking another x-ray of his back. He did not feel well enough to keep speaking and he focused on breathing normally which sometimes with those kinds of injuries proved to be quite challenging.

 ** _"The vertebrae seem to be realigning. There is a lot of edema around the break which is what you would expect from something like this"_** she replied

 ** _"Show me"_** She held up the picture for him to see from his bed **" _This is strange. You see that?"_** He pointed toward a small strand of what looked like thread on the picture.

 ** _"Yea, I don't know what caused it. Maybe a malfunction in the machine?"_** she asked.

 ** _"No idea, that's why I asked. First time I see that sort of thing in any x-ray"_** His face was confused **" _You should go home. There's nothing you can do here tonight"_**

 ** _"I'm staying and nothing you say will convince me otherwise"_ she replied " _It's the least I can do when you took that sort of damage for me. Thank you, by the way"_**

 ** _"No sweat. Nothing you wouldn't do for me am I right?"_** he gave her a bright smile **" _You sure you don't want to leave?"_** he smirked

 ** _"For the last time. No I don't want to leave your side_ "** she was annoyed

 ** _"Not even if I ask you to bring me some food? Because I'm kind of starving"_** he smiled and she started to laugh.

 ** _"Yes. I'm going to get food. But then I'm staying with you"_** she said with a determination that made him shut it.

 ** _"I love you, Cait"_**

 ** _"I love you too, Barry"_**


	31. Encounter

The recovery was arduous for Barry. Even his dad showed up to help, only if for moral support if nothing else. Caitlin was with him all the way, helping him in every aspect of everyday life. From getting him to and out of bed, to running him around at super speed. It was weird for him but he didn't have any problems being carried by his girlfriend. The only thing that he didn't like was the fact that Caitlin had to go against Grodd on her own. He had managed to recover partial mobility, but she told him a definitive no on running. It took almost a complete week for his spinal injury to completely heal itself and now Barry was dealing with the fallout of having that injury. He was slowed considerably until he got the complete function of his legs which, even with his spine completely healed sometimes seemed like they didn't listen to orders.

He had fallen from standing a couple of time right out of the blue and she was there to catch him every time. She knew that telling him to stay put was all she could do. Barry was a fighter and no matter how much everyone tried to put him down, he would always stand back up and rise to whatever challenge life would give him. They decided to let Jay out of the pipeline for now, Cisco finished the bots so even if he was a speedster that was hiding, the dampening field around STAR would activate the bots and he would be powerless. Bette took him home and fed him some story about how a mental attack from a Meta wiped his memory of the last few weeks, although he was in the pipeline sleeping all that time.

Harry was becoming more and more part of the team, even with his snarkyness and all around being a douche. The man knew his science, and repeatedly helped the team as best he could without asking anything in return. He knew that they had promised to get his daughter back and that was all that he wanted. They threw Grodd back to earth two via a breach that Cisco helped open. Encouraged by his teammates the engineer had been tinkering with tech and helped by Barry and Caitlin find the source of his powers he devised a pair of glasses that would allow him to vibe at will and, to an extent, control breaches. He tried to close them, but realized that he did not know enough about his powers yet to be able to control the breaches that were not created by him.

Bette on the other hand gained an interesting power which she took time in understanding with Cisco's help. She could project explosive force through a medium up to a point up to 50 meters away. It was easy for her to project through solid objects, but when doing it through air, her effective range dropped to 30 meters and doing it was tiring for her, but with the engineers help she was getting the hang of it.

There was an interesting development thought. In the quest to catch Grodd, Harry had to put on the Reverse Flash costume. He made a few notes about how the suit was being able to be put back in the ring he wore and considering he was pretty good with micro technology as he had shown earlier, he said he was going to find a way to put their suits in rings as well.

Barry was slowly getting on his feet starting to run more and more with Caitlin by his side. The injury's side effects were diminishing and he returned to be the same old Flash after a while.

As they were patrolling the city like they usually did when they were bored, Cisco and Bette went to Jitters to get some coffee. Then only person there at that time of night was Kendra, who had drawn the short straw and had to clean up. After the discussion Cisco had with the barista she toned down the flirting and Bette and her even became friends.

 **"Hey. What brings you here to this late hour?"** Kendra smiled at the two entering Jitters after closing time.

 **"We needed some coffee. Tired after … practicing"** Bette told her without giving anything away.

 **"Sure, the usual then?"** She smiled at the two.

 **"Yes, please. And grab yourself one too. You can take a break from all the cleaning"** Cisco motioned to the barista. She was surprised, usually Bette would have had a fit by now but when she looked over the same sign came over from her as well. She took that as it looked and after a few minutes they were all sitting at a table enjoying a hot cup of Java. Their quiet moment was interrupted by a man in a long coat coming into the closed establishment.

 **"Hey, man this place is closed"** Cisco got up from the table.

 **"Yeah. How did you get in here?"** Kendra stood up as well Bette shutting down her earrings. Cisco had been working hard, he thought since he made something nice for Caitlin that could keep her powers under control, why not do the same for his girlfriend. The earrings were exquisite. The tech was concealed behind amethyst rocks in the fittings. They had the same function as the ones he made for Caitlin, except Bette did not need a cosmetic mode. Her earrings would suppress her powers and that was that. She was very happy when the engineer presented her with that gift on their first anniversary as a couple. Caitlin even noticing that she looked really beautiful with them on. She told Cisco that if he had enough time to make her amethyst earrings she wanted hers to be diamond. Of course, that was a joke, but the engineer complied and in the span of a few days, Frost had new earrings as well.

 **"Hello, my dear, you are as beautiful in this life as any other"** The strange man kept approaching them **"Priestess Sheara"** He held a strange knife in his hand, something that from what Cisco could see was engraved with hieroglyphs

 **"You have to go"** Bette stood up as Kendra looked at him

 **"I don't understand. What do you want? She asked.**

 **"I believe the weapons that I am holding in my hands make that pretty clear. I want your life"** The strange man started to move even close and tried to lunge at the barista. Bette made a swift motion and an explosion materialized in front of him, weak enough that Cisco, who was now in front, would not get scorched, but with enough punch that the man would fly backwards from the blast. Cisco pushed his panic button instantly. The moment the man that fell to the floor jumped back to his feet a flurry of knives was flying toward them. Barry and Caitlin made it just in time to catch the knives, one so close that almost went into Cisco's chest.

 **"Phew"** The engineer looked at the two **"Thanks, Barry. I thought I was a goner"**

 **"Dude, secret identity? Come on"** he scoffed prompting Bette to give Cisco a slap on the back of the head. Kendra's eyes soon widened looking at the man that was talking to the Flash like they were old friends.

 **"Where is he?"** Bette asked with a surprised face. The moment the two speedsters caught the knives the character was gone. She even tried to run toward the entrance, but when looking outside the street was empty, nobody was around. A bit annoyed she came back inside

 **"We don't know who that man was, but he did try to lunge at Kendra with a knife, I think we might have to be on guard duty for a bit"** Cisco mumbled. Bette didn't like the barista at all at first, but they slowly became friends, so she was ok with helping her stay alive and avoid the mad man that was seemingly following her.

 **"We're going to take Kendra to STAR. You two follow. Or ... does anyone want a ride?"** Caitlin smiled at the two

 **"Take Cisco with you. He might be able to vibe to find out why this mad man is after Kendra. I'll follow you in the car. Sure it will take me a bit to get there, but we do need to not leave the car randomly around town"** Bette told them.

 **"I do need to finish cleaning and lock up"** Kendra looked at them strangely. Before she managed to blink two flashes of lightning cleaned the place up in a matter of seconds **"Or… not"** They all got out and Kendra closed the doors, Barry grabbed Cisco and Caitlin grabbed Kendra and they were gone with Bette in the car on her way.

The barista was completely surprised. She had no idea who these people were except that Bette and Cisco worked with them.

 **"So … you two work with Flash and Frost?"** she looked at Cisco with a weird face

 **"Pretty much. Those two do all the work and we're the tech support, however … that doesn't mean we're, you know … , normal"** He motioned toward Barry who got out of his suit in seconds and Caitlin who was now in her office wear and her Frost transformation receding to make way for her normal form.

 **"So, any idea what this guy would want with her?"** Barry asked pretty bluntly

 **"No, I've never met him before in my life"** Kendra replied.

 **"He did act like he knew her… he even called her "Priestess Sheara""** Cisco told her.

 **"That sounds like Coptic"** Harry offered an opinion and explained when Barry looked at him with an inquisitive look **"Ancient Egyptian"**

 **"Well, I grew up in Wisconsin and ... I've never even left the States so … why would some guy that speaks ancient Egyptian know me?"** Kendra asked pretty perplexed.

 **"I can put a few cops on protective detail " Joe added from the back, he was here like always when he wanted to speak with Barry or Caitlin, or just to help them with their daily endeavors.**

 **"No offense Joe, but if you saw the flurry of knives that guy threw at Cisco, I suspect you would not be offering. I doubt normal humans would stand a chance"** Caitlin added.

 **"Well we have some friends that can help … except we are going to need to leave Central City"** Barry added as curiosity set on their face. Caitlin was the only one who knew who he was referring to.

Oliver, Thea and Diggle were storming a warehouse where Damien Darhk was supposed to get a shipment of weapons. They did manage to take out all the soldiers but when it came to Darhk, they couldn't do much. The man was very powerful, he could wield magic, something Oliver was familiar enough seeing that he had already met Constantine by that time. All the arrows and bombs that they threw at him ultimately proved useless as Thea and Diggle were on the ground and Darhk tried to suck the life out of Green Arrow. That didn't last long, Flash and Frost sped everyone out, Frost leaving a surprise Ice prison for the villain.

 **"Damn it. Every time"** Diggle went into a corner of the alley they were in and puked. Thea however was very surprised at the appearance of the two superheroes.

 **"It's the Flash? Did I know we knew the Flash? Oh. Ok. We know the Flash"** Caitlin made an appearance standing beside Barry **"Oh, we know Frost too?"** she asked and Oliver nodded **"That makes sense, them being partners and all"**

 **"Thank you for the assist you two. But I don't think you ran all the way over here to protect us"** Oliver offered his own brand of thanks

 **"No, we actually need to protect a friend. Let's go back to the cave, we can fill you in on what happened over there"** Barry told the group and Caitlin nodded. They flashed to the Arrow cave with Oliver and Thea. Diggle staying behind politely refusing to make another run that would probably make him spill his guts again.

 **"Wow, nice new digs"** Barry commented as they entered in the brand new Arrow Cave.

 **"Also, you seem to have no sleeves on your suit. Don't you get cold?"** Caitlin smiled at the archer.

 **"Caitlin, I spent the better part of five years on an island in the north china sea. I don't get cold"** he scoffed prompting a roll of the eyes from Barry

 **"Hey, Barry, Caitlin. It's so good to see you"** Felicity stepped down from the platform hugging the both of them, then immediately clocking Barry in the chest **"How come you didn't tell me Zoom broke your back?"** The she hugged him again **"So glad to see you`re ok"** Barry was flabbergasted. He turned to Oliver.

 **"So this is what it's like dating her?"** he asked

 **"I have more bruises from her than from Deathstroke"** Oliver smiled putting away his gear. Caitlin chuckled at the archer's explanation.

 **"STAR Labs was amazing, but this ... this is …"** Kendra tried to speak before Cisco cut her off.

 **"This is all wrong. Did you not look at the schematics I sent over? I mourn for the death of engineering. Copper wiring? Really, Felicity? How will you keep up with the processing power from the STAR West and STAR Labs satellites. Your system is bound to overload"** Cisco said with a bit of annoyance.

 **"But that doesn't happen. OR it hasn't happened since last week. I mean … it happened yesterday"** Felicity was babbling.

 **"Felicity, you know you can write off the expenses for the Arrow cave off of STAR West. Just let Cisco help upgrade your systems. You might be the best hacker in the world, but your engineering knowledge falls short when you compare to Cisco. You know money is not a problem"** Caitlin told her blonde friend.

 **"Money is not a problem? Who are these guys?"** Kendra was stunned

 **"Right, these two are the owners of ex Palmer Tech soon to be renamed to STAR West. Barry owns STAR Labs and few other ventures. Basically, these two are billionaires"** Cisco told her.

 **"What is it with billionaires and being superheroes"** the barista blurted out prompting Oliver to take off his hood and mask. He figured if the two speedsters trusted this person, he could too **"And here is yet another billionaire"** Kendra concluded seeing Oliver Queen **"Hello, I'm Kendra Saunders"** She extended a hand to the blonde girl who seemed to be the least threatening.

 **"Hi. I'm Felicity. These are John Diggle, Thea Queen and her brother Oliver"** She shook the barista's hand.

 **"So … first I meet Flash, then Frost and now the Green Arrow"** Her face was priceless. Oliver cracked one of his usual smirks looking at Cisco **"So, you two, are there any more surprises you have in store for me?"**

 **"No, I don't think so" Cisco rubbed his neck with Bette smirking at him.**

 **"Barry said you need our help. Someone very dangerous is after you?"** Oliver cut straight to the point

 **"Yes. He was right, the problem is that I have no idea why he is chasing me"** She sighed sitting on a chair.

 **"What does this guy even look like?"** Thea asked bluntly. In a few seconds Barry drew a picture of him

 **"Like this"** He responded handing over the picture to Felicity. She started to type and found an old picture who Kendra recognized immediately, except that picture was from 1975, which would make the man at least 80 years old. Oliver questioned Kendra about everything he could think about yielding nothing. She had just moved to Central a few months ago with no reason other than to get out of her own town. That annoyed the archer. He made it clear that they were a bit reckless to come to him without having any sort of information on the enemy they were supposed to be fighting. You could see it on his face that he was a bit angry, but the blonde managed to calm him down. After a while of searching, Felicity saw that the algorithm had not yet come up with anyone that matched the picture that Barry drew up. Since she could follow the search from her table, they all decided to go back to her corporate loft. It was initially part of the properties that Queen Consolidated had, but after being taken over by Ray, he offered her the apartment and she accepted. The gang was simply hanging around drinking.

 **"I don't wasn't to change my nickname. I like Speedy. I used to hate it back when Oliver called me that, but in this case, it does work for me quite well"** Thea told the engineer who was trying to convince her that her name needed a bit of a change.

 **"If you know my body of work, then you know I can come up with something so much better that Speedy"** he answered

 **"Well, how about we talk after you get a haircut. I don't trust men with long hair to make design decisions when it comes to my own brand. You aren't Fabio, you know"** she smirked at him prompting Bette to laugh and Kendra throwing awkward looks at his hair

 **"Oh, you`re just jealous because my conditioner game is on point, I can see some split ends over there, Speedy"** Cisco replied making everyone chuckle. Oliver went to the bar to get another drink leaving Felicity with Barry and Caitlin.

 **"So, the VP of Palmer Tech, is now living with Oliver Queen. It's crazy how much life can change in a few months, isn't it"** he smiled.

 **"Well you should know better than anyone. There is another Flash, another Dr. Wells from another earth. You two now own STAR and Palmer Tech and are filthy rich and you finally moved in together I hear"** Felicity grinned at the two seeing them holding hands.

 **"Another drink, my dear?"** Barry turned toward his beautiful partner who was dawning a blue dress with long sleeves, a cut back and heels

 **"Sure, but you know alcohol doesn't affect us. So why bother?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"I know you love the taste, that's all"** he told her and kissed her cheek, prompting Felicity to smirk. Moving toward Oliver and the bar.

 **"I'm sorry I laid all this on you, Oliver. I should have at least asked first"** Barry told his good friend and mentor

 **"It's fine. I'm sorry If earlier I was a bit"** Barry completed his sentence.

 **"Snippy?"** he grinned

 **"I have been called worse"** the archer grinned **"But I'm glad that you`re here. I'm glad you reached out. Asking for help shows a real maturity and I should know that, because I've never been that mature"** he continued **"You know I'm always here for you if you need my help"**

 **"Thank you and you know the feeling is mutual. Maybe if you do get that maturity you should know that I'm always there for assistance if the situation requires. To be fair, Oliver, if you get hurt badly and you knew you could call and did not because of some bullshit you thought up, I would be very angry with you. You might be buff, strong and with a tactical mind, but I can catch bullets out of the air and Caitlin can stop anything in it's tracks"** Barry smiled. **"I have to say, this is not something I'm used to seeing. You actually have a team now and you aren't the same man I've met years ago. You seem really …"**

 **"Happy?"** the archer cut him off. Barry nodded. **"I am happy. I finally have everything that I ever wanted. Besides with you in charge I know Felicity will always have a job doesn't matter where she is. Being with her has given me a … real sense of peace. That is something that I have not had for a long time. As you know from our previous talks, peace was not something that was present, my life was mostly based on rage, guilt and revenge"**

 **"Didn't you use to say that guys like us don't get the girl?"** Barry cracked, specifically repeating the question he had asked his friend once before.

 **"Yep. I said I was wrong then and that's what I'm keeping with. You have a super powered ice throwing speedster for a girlfriend. I was definitely wrong"** the archer gave him a serene smile moving away. Barry started to laugh **"I would like to propose a toast. To us. I wish that dark times weren't the only thing bringing us together"** he got cut mid-sentence by Barry who sped by his side stealing his drink.

 **"But it is friends like you that make those dark times worth having"** Barry finished and Caitlin slapping him on the back of the neck

 **"What a guy, stealing my drink stealing my words"** the archer smirked.

 **"Hey, you don't steal other people's drinks in their own home, Barry Allen"** Caitlin was laughing as she said that.

 **"As I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted by a hyperactive speedster"** Barry gave him the stink eye **"Welcome. It's good to see everyone. I'm really glad you`re here"** Oliver stated truthfully. He was happy being with Felicity and now everyone being here reminded him that he was never alone to begin with. He could always call on the STAR Labs team to help him out. Their happiness was short lasting as the same man that came into Jitters managed to break through the door that lead out to the balcony. In a flash Oliver and Thea had their gear on with arrows trained at the intruder.

 **"Don't move"** Oliver told the man

 **"And how will I kill you all if I do not?"** he smiled throwing a flurry of daggers at everyone. Frost was quick about it

 ** _"You get the daggers that are going toward Oliver and Thea. I'll shield the others with an ice wall. Those two need clear sight to their target"_** Caitlin told him as her hair turned silver and a large ice barrier was raised in front of everyone. Barry sped around and collected all the daggers that were flying at the two archers. Oliver started to fire at the man but he deflected the arrows easily with two large metal fans. He seemed proficient at close combat but he could not deflect all the arrows that were fired at him. Two from Oliver and breaking the tempo two from Thea flew toward him. One hit him in the shoulder pushing him back. A large Icicle that was thrown by Frost hit him in the other shoulder and pushed him out on the balcony. Before anyone could see anything two arrows from Thea hit him straight in the chest toppling him over the railing as he fell down to the street below. Oliver and Barry went to look over the side but the street below was clear prompting them to say in one voice.

 **"Oh … boy"** they both exclaimed. Caitlin flashed downstairs and scoped the place out and searched for evidence, but the place was clean. Not even blood or anything to be analyzed. She flashed back upstairs.

 **"There is nothing down there. No sort of evidence or anything that could help us in identifying the assailant. The strange part, there was not even a hint of blood. It's like the guy fell, hit the car, got up and ran away"**

 **"How does she know that?"** The people that did not know her skills asked looking surprised at the nicely dressed scientist.

 **"She's a CSI"** Oliver and Barry said at the same time. They all got back to the Arrow cave. Cisco told them about how he vibed Kendra and everything he knew about his vision, but before he could finish another surprise visitor appeared. Malcolm Merlyn, with a quite a large company of assassins by his side. Barry and Caitlin didn't meet him before so she was at the ready with a horde of icicles ready to be thrown while Oliver motioned them to stand down

 **"Really? Who is this guy?"** Barry asked.

 **"He's … my dad"** Thea offered.

 **"Malcolm what are you doing here?"** Oliver questioned the man.

 **"I came with information. We were tracking Felicity's searches. The man you are looking for. His name is Vandal Savage"** Merlyn told the team.

 **"Never heard of him. Who is he?"** Diggle joined the conversation.

 **"Some say he was the most trusted advisor to Genghis Khan. Other say that he guided Julius Caesar through the Gaelic Wars. There is one thing that the League knows for sure. Vandal Savage was there for all of it**." Malcom spoke

 **"So what are you saying, he's like a Vampire?"** Cisco asked with a weird look in his eyes.

 **"Not a vampire, an immortal"** the answer came shocking everyone **"there is nothing you can do to save her now. He will keep coming and coming until she is dead. Doesn't matter where you hide her"**

 **"I can get superheroes, but immortality? We've officially gone into crazy town. I need to get out of here to gather my thoughts"** Kendra told the group. Oliver motioned Cisco and Bette to go with her. It didn't take long for Cisco to activate his panic button again. Kendra was kidnapped by a flying man. Felicity was already tracking them and Flash and Frost sped out to follow her trail.

 **"We found her. She's on a rooftop downtown. The winged man is fighting Oliver on 53rd and Quincy"** Felicity told the two speedsters. When they got there they saw the emerald archer taking quite a few punches from the intruder. Barry went and punched him a few times only to be raised up in the air and left to drop from quite a large altitude. Frost helped him to get down by building a slide for him. The impact with the ground was lessened, but he still groaned a bit.

 **"We need to clip his wings"** The archer told the speedsters. They looked at each other **" _Wind vortexes"_** they said at the same time and started to produce tornadoes with their hands which stopped the winged man in his tracks long enough for Oliver to tie his wings with bolo arrows. He fell to the ground trying to detangle himself, but Flash and Frost didn't give him a chance. They each vibrated their hands and threw two lightning bolts at him knocking him out. Oliver was surprised.

 **"That was … new"** he motioned with his hand imitating the lightning throw

 **"Oliver, you aren't the only one who can come up with cool new things to use on bad people"** Caitlin smiled at him.

Over the next hour the man that was now chained in the arrow cave to a steel girder explained how things worked. He and Sheara were two souls that kept reincarnating because of Vandal Savage and every time they did, he would find them and kill them. He told them that the only way to help Kendra was to let her remember and waken the powers inside her. That way she will have the power to fight with him and the others against Savage and maybe rid the world of the madman once and for all. They went onto a roof where Carter, as the man called himself simply pushed her off. Barry managed to get to her in time and bring her back up. Oliver pulled him aside.

 **"What are you doing, Barry?"** he asked.

 **"She was going to die. I had to save her"** Barry responded.

 **"No. we need to let her jump and you are going to continue saving her until she sprouts wings"** Oliver said coldly **"I know you want to be the hero, but this time you need to let it go"**

 **"Oliver, if she splats into the ground then she can't waken her powers, come on that's basic logic man. It's just the rules keep changing. One day we run through time. The next I'm fighting a telepathic gorilla, after that an evil speedster from a parallel dimension and now we`re what? We're chasing an immortal madman on a rampage trying to kill a reincarnated warrior priestess?"** Oliver shrugged **"I just never thought I'd have superpowers and feel more powerless than I have felt in my entire life"** Barry sighed.

 **"See? Now that I understand. But you have already helped Kendra more than you think. You have kept her alive. So how about we find some way to get her wings and then she can give you a lift back to Central City"** the archer smiled at him then realized something and went back to the others **"Kendra, you said you were drawn to Central City when you moved?"**

 **"Yes. Why?"** she asked with a surprised face

 **"I think you two are drawn to the objects that can kill you as well as to each other"** He pressed a button on his suit **"Felicity can you check if the staff is in Central City?"**

 **"The staff was in a private collection till it was consecrated in a church. In Central City"** Felicity pulled up a picture.

 **"Carter, you stay here. Take Kendra back to the lair. I'll have Thea and Diggle hold down the fort with you. Cisco, Bette you too. With this guy being immortal they will need all the help they can get"** The two nodded at his statement.

 **"Kendra. Last year we lost our powers. It took letting go of everything around us to reconnect with them. Maybe you should just stop worrying and thinking about why all this is happening. When you will be at peace, your true self will emerge"** Caitlin told the barista who was surprised at the bluntness of it all.

Flash, Frost and Green Arrow were speeding toward Central City. Oliver was per instructions was keeping his eyes closed, he could feel the movement and the wind rushing across him.

 **"We need to keep the staff of Horus away from Savage. If Carter is right then it's power is immense. He could literally blow up the city with it"** Barry said

 **"If he can use the staff then we will have more problems with him that we imagined. These are our lives now huh, fighting immortal madmen with magic Staves"** Oliver could almost hear Frost face palming. They flashed in front of the church after about half an hour of travel and they went inside on foot. Savage was already inside. Everyone started attacking him, Flash with lightning, Frost with ice daggers and Arrow just letting loose of as many shots as he could. Savage seemed to have a shield around him granted him by the Staff. He felt something shift and then hit the staff on the ground causing a massive explosion. They barely managed to get out and they weren't singed thanks to Frost's quick thinking to put a up a multi layered ice barrier behind them as they ran.

 **"That was … something. Do you think he blew himself up in there?"** Barry asked his partner.

 **"Doubtful. He fell from a high rise and didn't even flinch, I doubt that explosion would do him any sort of harm"** She answered.

 **"We need to let the others know that Savage has the staff of Horus"** Oliver responded and picked up his phone. He was calling Felicity

 **"How did you do?"** she asked from the other side of the line

 **"Poorly. Savage has the staff of Horus. You all need to get to Central City ASAP. We have to come up with a plan for this madman or he could level every city from here to Star looking for his priestess"** Oliver told the blond.

 **"She managed to awaken her powers. She jumped off a roof where there was only Cisco. I don't know what they talked about but after she jumped she started to fly. Now she's out there with Carter getting the hang of it"** She replied.

 **"Good, her powers will be needed. This guy is nothing to joke about. He blew up the church the staff was in with not so much as a sweat"** Oliver told his girlfriend.

 **"Are you guys all right?"** she asked with a tone of desperation in her voice.

 **"Yes we're fine. We'll go to STAR and wait for you guys. There is no point for me to come home tonight anyway. When you come here get me more supplies, I wasted about 30 arrows that went into the shield the staff was projecting around him and literally disintegrated"** the archer was visibly annoyed about that.

 **"They disintegrated? Wow... what?"** She asked.

 **"I'll tell you more when we get here. Get everyone and meet us at STAR labs. We can go to wherever we need to after that"** He replied.

 **"Ok. I see you tomorrow. I love you"**

 **"Love you too"** he said closing the line turning toward the two speedsters that were madly grinning at him. **"What? You already knew I love Felicity. What are the grins for?"** he asked

 **"We just thought we'd never hear Oliver Queen say the L word"** Caitlin started to laugh.

 **"I didn't think I would see the day Barry got a proper girlfriend. But hey I guess miracles do happen"** He smirked toward the Flash.

 **"Hey!"** Barry tried to appear annoyed but cracking and starting to laugh **"You`re right. This one is indeed a miracle in my life"** he put his hand around Caitlin's waist kissing her lips gently **"And I love her too"** he continued

 **"Got any place I can crash tonight?"** the archer asked reminding the two that they had to wait for everyone to get back into the city.

 **"What do you prefer, want us to book you a hotel room or … our couch"** Caitlin told the archer what options were available.

 **"I don't care much about hotels, besides I don't really have normal clothes so … I would prefer the couch. If I'm not intruding. It would be a bit weird if the Green Arrow shows up at a hotel asking for his room"** Oliver smiled at the two.

 **"Couch it is. What's your shirt size?"** Caitlin asked prompting weird looks from both men. **"Barry is leaner than you and I'm pretty sure you'd stretch out any of his shirts so, while me and you flash home, Flash here is going to go buy you some shirts for you to sleep in"** Barry realized what she was saying and she was right.

 **"Large will be fine. Doesn't matter what kind"** Oliver said as Caitlin took him with her and went to the apartment. Barry followed a few seconds later with a few shirts, two pairs of shorts and 10 boxes of pizza. He had bought a bottle of the scotch that Oliver had the night before and a bottle of Caitlin's favorite wine as well.

 **"Who's hungry?"** he smiled putting everything on the table.

 **"You know I am"** she smiled.

 **"Same here"** the archer admitted. **"By the way, thanks for letting me use the couch"**

 **"No sweat, Oliver. You`re our friend. You can come here even if Felicity throws you out of her apartment. Although you wouldn't have much to do in Central City with all the super powered Metas around"** Barry told his friend.

 **"Are you telling me I'm going to be useless?"** Oliver smirked.

 **"Not useless, just in more danger than you have been in Star"** Caitlin added.

 **"Yeah, right. Because being stalked and recruited into the League of Assassins wasn't dangerous"** he looked at them rolling his eyes.

 **"Point taken. Good night, Oliver"** Barry told his friend. **"We'll see you in the morning. Feel free to get yourself coffee or whatever else you find around here if you wake up before us"**

 **"Good night to you too"** the archer relaxed on the couch as the two retired to their bedroom.


	32. Immortal

The speedster couple woke up the next morning to the smell of freshly cooked food. They did remember about letting Oliver stay the night but none of them actually knew that he could cook. They did remember something that Felicity mentioned in passing related to that, but now they wanted to see it for themselves. They put some house clothes on and got out from the bedroom only to be met by two sizeable omelets with bacon sitting on the counter and two cups of coffee.

 **"Good morning, Ollie"** Barry greeted his friend **"What brought this on? You decided to wake up and cook? I thought you were the guest here"**

 **"Remember I told you that we spent some time away me and Felicity?"** he asked and both the speedsters nodded. **"Let's just say Felicity isn't very good at cooking and so … I discovered a talent that I didn't know I had"**

 **"Yeah, Felicity might have mentioned something in passing last time we talked to her about that. This tastes amazing, I think you might have found another calling rather than being the Green Arrow, Oliver Queen's Kitchen Nightmares"** Caitlin sat down and dug into the oversized omelet as Oliver smirked.

 **"Don't confuse me for someone else, Caitlin. I might be good, but I'm definitely not THAT good"**

 **"Did you get any sort of message from the rest of the team?"** Barry asked while he sat down to eat himself.

 **"Yes. They are looking for a secure location as we speak. They left pretty early from Star City this morning"** Oliver replied as he was eating something himself.

 **"Why do we need a secure location? Didn't we agree that we should meet at STAR?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"Savage seems to be able to detect Kendra and Carter. Last night he didn't blow us up because he felt her emerge. I thought it would be better that if he comes after us we don't give him targets that are already in the city"** he explained and the two nodded.

After they finished eating and cleaning up, they suited up and flashed over to a location that was pretty annoying to find. It was a farmhouse in what Barry called _"the middle of nowhere"._ They were already jeeps in front of the house and they just went in. Everyone was already there, Felicity, Cisco, Carter and Kendra also for good measure they brought Thea, Diggle and Laurel with them. Bette had to go to the CCPD. There was a bomb threat that was called in and she needed to handle it, as much as she wanted to help the others, she did still have a job she had to go to.

 **"So, first order of business. We need to find out a way to handle the staff safely and take it from Savage. Neutralize his advantage and maybe we stand a chance"** Oliver told them

 **"Yeah, his magic stick thing"** Felicity added.

 **"The staff of Horus"** Carter added from behind them.

 **"When we tried it last time I couldn't even touch him, it was the staff was projecting some sort of force field around the guy"** Barry told everyone

 **"And my ice daggers bounced off whatever shield he was in as well"** Caitlin continued.

 **"Maybe the staff itself is producing a magnetic field of some sort, which can mean two things. It either requires power, which means it has to have some sort of power source inside or … "** Cisco managed to gather his thoughts

 **"Maybe it could be actual magic that drives it. Before you ask, yes magic is real, I met a guy a long time ago that showed me that. His name was John Constantine. I was almost as skeptical as you when he said the word "magic". However as I have found out later, he was not bullshitting me in the slightest"** Oliver added with a serious face. The people around him wanted to laugh and dismiss his point, but when they saw the way he said it, they stopped and pondered at the possibility that magic might actually be real. The archer had no reason to lie when something like that was concerned.

 **"If it is indeed magic, I have no idea what we can do about it. Let's focus on the tech side of things, an EM shield would indeed produce the effects you described. If that's the case then a pair of insulated gauntlets might help"** Felicity interjected

 **"I could built something that might help with the staff's magnetics either by absorbing it or by jamming it"** Cisco spoke.

 **"Absorbing it would be ill advised. We don't know what kind of magnetic energy is in that staff and it could produce permanent damage to the wielder. How about we just stick to jamming. The magnetic shielding should be enough to disrupt the staff's magnetic polarity. IF we can't find any other sort of solution then we can go back to absorption"** Caitlin told them as her Felicity and Cisco went into another room.

 **"Ok, while the geek squad is working"** Oliver started only to be cut off by a voice from the other room.

 **"I heard that, Honey"** Felicity yelled **"Never discount the geeks, without us you might get blown up"** Oliver continued

 **"While they work to get the staff away from Savage safely, we need to know everything there is to know about him"**

 **"Well, I googled reincarnated nut jobs and came up with nothing. Not even on the conspiracy theories sites"** Thea said sarcastically

 **"Kendra and I are the reincarnated nut jobs. Savage is just immortal"** Carter explained while helping move stuff from the van.

 **"Just?"** Laurel looked at him crooked **"If I would have known that there was a time when I would answer with "just" on the information that someone was immortal, I would have gone and put myself in a mental asylum"**

 **"Welcome to the new normal"** Thea sighed **"Where the world is screwed up and it happens so much that it's not even considered out of the ordinary anymore"**

 **"Anyone who's been around for 4000 years should leave some kind of foot print. I can check with ARGUS and see if they have anything on him"** Diggle added and went to another room to call Lyla.

 **"Laurel and I can check police reports and everything else we can access from here from the ADA's office"** Thea responded and Laurel nodded.

 **"We need you to learn to use your new abilities"** Oliver told Kendra. **"It might give us an edge over Savage in the fight to come"**

 **"Whatever you do. Don't let him train you"** Oliver gave Barry a death glare **"I'm sorry but I still get pains when it's raining outside from the places that you shot me. I'm sure Caitlin isn't better off"** The speedster smiled

 **"I'll handle her training then"** Carter interjected and the archer nodded

 **"I need to run something down. I'll be back in a bit"** Oliver told the group and exited the building having Felicity follow him closely.

 **"Hey, are you all right?"** she asked.

 **"Well, you know. We're fighting an immortal madman with a magic staff, so you ... you could say I have stuff on my mind"** he responded.

 **"You were acting fine while we were at home … but now since we're in Central City, it's like you`re not … you"** Felicity made it clear what she was saying. She did know him well enough by now.

 **"Maybe it's too bright and sunny for me out here"** He gave her a look **"Look, there is something going on, and I promise I'll tell you, but I do want a chance to know what I'm dealing with first. Ok?"**

 **"Ok"** she smiled at him giving him a kiss **"Don't be away too long. I don't want to start missing you now"** and went back into the house.

The surprise came later. Malcolm had arranged a meeting between them and Savage. While on the way to that meeting Barry and Caitlin saw images of themselves that were there and then disappeared. They knew what that meant. Sometime in the future they were going to return back in time to this exact moment. It couldn't have been from the future because neither of them had remembered such trip ever occurring. They were getting used to causality things related to time travel which considering what happened the last time, it was a bit disconcerting.

The meeting didn't go so well. Savage wanted Kendra and Carter. The three friends told him bluntly that they will not hand them over and when savage walked out Malcom asked them if they were sincerely stupid trying to fight an immortal being. The three simply shrugged and left the leader of the league of assassins there without much to think of. In the meantime Kendra's training with Carter wasn't going so well. He had tried a lot of tricks that he used in their past lives to make her remember certain things but this time she wouldn't budge. Even with the advice that Barry and Caitlin gave her. The group gathered for a talk.

 **"So, we have 24 hours to turn you in or ..."** Oliver didn't manage to finish when Carter cut in.

 **"Savage lays waste to Central City"** he added and the archer nodded **"I have seen this before. 1887 the flood of Huang Tzu river killed nearly 2 million people. Savage used that to get to us and he did. He knows that killing us is the only thing that keeps him living, so in his mind the price of human life is extremely low. He will do anything to get to us, that's why his threat right now needs to be taken seriously and at face value. That madman would probably nuke Central City as long as we die in the blast"**

 **"You were alone then, you aren't now. We have 24 hours to come up with a workable plan. Getting the city turned into a smoking hole in the ground just so he could get to you is not something I want to see"** Caitlin interjected from the back.

 **"No, this is insane. My life isn't worth the missions of people that are living in Central City"** Kendra said with a fit of rage as she walked out on the meeting.

 **"I'll go talk to her"** Carter interjected before Cisco. The engineer wanted to say the same thing but the winged man had already gone after her.

 **"Here's an idea. Why don't we throw him to Savage?"** he said visibly irritated as he went back to the tool shed to work on the gauntlets. As he got there Barry and Caitlin were waiting for him. They had flashed from the house.

 **"What is wrong with you two, you seem really on edge"** the engineer asked his friend

 **"Last night, when we were going to that meeting, we ghosted"** Barry said bluntly

 **"Oh no, but that only means one thing"** Cisco realized before getting cut off by Caitlin

 **"That in some future time we run back to last night. Back in time"**

 **"Damn it you two. You know the first rule of time travel is that you don't talk about time travel. The discussion we`re having right now could totally affect history"** Cisco replied rather worried

 **"Either that or you`re doing a promo for Fight Club again"** Barry added.

 **"Yeah last time you vibed so …"** Caitlin was fidgeting with something on the workbench trying to keep her stress level down.

 **"Well I'm not vibing anything now. That's good. Ok look. Don't panic. A) you don't know that you jumped for a bad reason. It could have been a totally valid one like someone dying or something. B) Now that you guys know that you time jumped maybe you don't do it anyway because you know, knowing the future, might affect the present that might affect the future"** He tried to explain

 **"What?"** the speedsters asked in unison

 **"My head hurts. But you get what I'm trying to say right?"** the engineer asked.

 **"Kind of. I need some headache pills"** Barry told his friend. Felicity came out of the house and yelled for them to gather back in the house. Diggle, Thea and Laurel had come back with a tape that might have had what they needed. It was an old Betamax tape, Felicity had to work for a while before they could see it. Oliver was still nowhere to be found. It supposedly came from a conspiracy theorist group from ate in the 70's. They had kept tabs on Savage for many years, but their findings were heavily redacted. Except for this tape. She managed to play it and they all watched an old man come into the frame.

 **"My name is Doctor Aldus Boardman. I'm a professor at St. Roque University. The date is April 8th 1975. I don't think anyone else knows this and those that do don't believe. He's a myth. An urban legend. He's been compared to Machiavelli or Nostradamus, he has gone by many names, but I know him as Vandal Savage. And he will be the death of the world. But I believe there is a way to stop him. Savage is an immortal Egyptian priest, his long life is a result of an unearthly calamity. I believe that any object associated with this calamity should be able to undo its effects and kill him. I suspect that our precious fragile world may one day be counting on us doing exactly that"** the tape ended abruptly. The man had definitely more to say, but Felicity could not get back the last part.

 **"Well, that is the understatement of the year"** she said **"Or the last 4000 years, as the case may be"**

 **"Any idea of what he might be talking about? This "calamity" that is supposedly the cause of Savage being immortal?"** Diggle asked the two persons that kept reincarnating

 **"I don't remember anything of the sort"** Carter spoke **"but I have not been able to remember our first death, back in Egypt. No matter how many times I come back with the same memories, information and memories about that death still elude me"**

 **"The staff of Horus. I think it belonged to Savage back in Egypt"** Kendra suddenly entered the conversation

 **"You remember that far back?"** Carter said with a surprised face.

 **"No I don't it's just a hunch and if the professor is right, that staff is our key to killing Savage"** she continued.

 **"Ok. Someone needs to tell Oliver"** Laurel commented.

 **"I'll go see where he is. You guys can stay and work on the gauntlets, there's nothing much I can do here"** Barry replied and sped out the door. He found Oliver in a park with a strand of hair and a blood sample.

 **"Ollie, what are you doing here? Why are you not back at the house? Is there something wrong? Are you all right?"** Barry stopped next to him

 **"I need a favor. Can we talk somewhere else?"** Barry grabbed him and sped with him in to his CSI lab at CCPD. It was the closest and he didn't have civilian clothes with him, but he always kept a spare at the lab.

 **"Sure. Now tell me, what is this about?"** Barry asked his friend

 **"I need you to run a paternity test on this hair and blood"** He said with a blank face.

 **"Sure. To who do you want me to compare it to?"** the speedster answered.

 **"Me"** Oliver said with a blank expression in his eyes leaving Barry quite confused. **"Yes, Barry, you heard me right"** Barry nodded and went to work.

 **"Mind filling me in about what happened? Try not to lie or omit stuff, I'm just trying to help you"** Barry said with a really worried voice. The archer was on the fence about saying more than he already did **"Or, you know, if you don't talk I can send you somewhere else to get this tested. Right after Central City turns into a crater"** The speedster added and Oliver caved. He had way too much on his mind

 **"There was a woman I was in a relationship with a long time ago. My mother told me she had an accident and died. Back when I was here to help you with Bivalo, I met someone that looked just like her. After a little more investigation, I realized it was her and she had a child, about the same age as when we were in that relationship. When I confronted her she didn't want to answer my question so … I wanted an answer myself. That is why I came to you. I need to know if that is my son or not"** The archer finally replied. Barry nodded and restarted to work. After a couple of minutes and a DNA sequencer cycle the results were in. The test proved that Oliver was the father of whoever that blood sample belonged to **"Barry, nobody has to know about this. Keep it to yourself. I need to go take care of something"** he left in a big hurry. That was just enough to miss Felicity that came into his lab unannounced.

 **"Ok, I want to know what the hell is going on. And yes, I find people for a living so don't ask me how I found you. Besides, you work here it's not like you had anywhere else to go"** Felicity grinned at him. Barry still had the paper with the test in his hand and tried to speed it into his pocket failing miserably **"What was that?"**

 **"Nothing"** Barry fidgeted.

 **"Come on show me"** Felicity was getting impatient.

 **"I can't. Oliver specifically asked that nobody knows about this. I'm not going to say anything"** the speedster was trying to blame Oliver.

 **"Barry. I said show me"** She was getting really annoyed with how Barry was trying to protect her boyfriend.

 **"If I get flak from Oliver about this I'm blaming you. It's a paternity test. I think he might be someone's father"** Barry gave in and gave the blond the paper. She looked over it and sighed suddenly realizing why the archer had been so gloomy all that time.

That night when Oliver finally came back to the location Felicity was waiting for him outside.

 **"So ... how is that ... thing you were supposed to be taking care of?"** she asked.

 **"I don't know. I'm pretty stunned by what I found out"** he responded not knowing how to bring that up with her.

 **"I see. Since you still don't want to say anything, I assume you were going to keep for yourself that you have a child?"** Felicity handed him the DNA test.

 **"No. Not really. I just don't know how to handle it. This whole thing with Savage and now finding out that I have a son… let's just say it's a bit more than I can handle at this time"** Oliver told her truthfully.

 **"You know. I don't really care if you have a child. What I do care is the fact that you don't trust me enough to let me know"** Felicity was really mad.

 **"I just found out myself three hours ago and I went to confront his mother, which showed me a check for 4 million dollars signed by my dead mother in order for her to never come back to Star City. I wasn't keeping anything for myself. I just needed time to deal with this new reality on my own"** the archer raised his voice at Felicity

 **"Maybe you do need some time to deal with everything on your own"** she said giving him the paper and leaving toward the tool shed. Oliver went into the house and ran into Barry.

 **"Hey, you all right man? You seem way out of it"** the speedster told him.

 **"Is everyone gathered?"** he asked.

 **"Yea"** the answer came as they both went into the living room.

 **"We're coming up on Savage's deadline. Are the gauntlets ready?"** he asked.

 **"Yes, they will work. Then the staff will turn from can't touch this into the invisible touch."** Cisco grinned.

 **"Ok so. Savage doesn't know Kendra can access her full abilities. So you are going to be our ace in the hat. Me, Carter and Caitlin will provide cover fire while you Barry speed in and snatch the staff. At which point one of you two will use it and kill him"** Oliver laid out his plan

 **"So what do the rest of us do?"** Diggle asked.

 **"You stay behind, I do not want to lose other people that I care about"** He said with a stern voice which left the others with no reply.

They suited up and mock tied Kendra and Carter and sped toward the warehouse where they were supposed to be meeting Savage. The villain was surprised that he had bought them but didn't seem surprised when they undid their ties and attacked him. He held them at bay easily with the staff protecting him. Frost thought it would be a good exercise to throw a bolt of lightning at him and that initially did the trick. The electricity went past the shield that savage had around him and shocked the staff away from his hands.

Barry was on it. He managed to get the staff and turn it toward Savage in a wide beam of Blue light. But something was wrong. The gauntlets weren't keeping him insulated from the staff and soon it gave out a shockwave that threw him to the ground. Savage got back the staff and unleashed a fire wave across the city. Barry and Caitlin flashed out, running as fast as they could and realized this was the time that they would need to go back. Outrunning the blast wave that leveled Central City and everything within a 50 mile radius including the farmhouse where everybody else was hiding, the two found themselves looking at their alter egos from the night of the meeting. The ghosts finally disappeared and they arrived back at the initial meeting with Savage.

 ** _"Well Cisco was right about one thing. We did travel back in time for a pretty darn good reason. Central City being leveled by an immortal madman. Maybe we should have taken that threat a little less lightly"_** Caitlin looked at her boyfriend.

 ** _"Yeah. We have to do things differently. I know right where to start. I need to talk to Oliver. In the last timeline he gave me some DNA to test and it turned out that he has a son. We will need to talk about that. The plan that he put together in order for us to attack savage failed completely. I don't know why but I have a feeling that the main cause is our archer friend. I was surprised when a tactician would only use a few people from a crew instead of making a plan for everyone to help"_** Barry told her as they went into the meeting. That meeting didn't really turn out differently at all, but when they return to their hide out, both Caitlin and Barry stopped Oliver short of going into the house.

 **"Ollie, we need to talk"** Barry told the archer.

 **"What is up with you two? You were acting very weird at the meeting and now the same. We need to come up with a counter attack to take on Savage by tomorrow night"** Oliver spoke

 **"It's not going to work. Look this isn't going to make sense to you, but we've already been there. It went sour, so sour that we had to travel back in time to fix it"** Caitlin said without flinching.

 **"Wait, you came back in time? Aren't there penalties for that? I seem to remember you telling me that if you do that you can screw up the entire timeline"** the archer was annoyed that the two would makes such a stupid mistake.

 **"Screw the penalties. The last time Central City and everything around it for 30 miles became a god damn crater"** Barry almost yelled at him.

 **"You`re right. That doesn't make sense to me. But now we know that everything went wrong, which means we can use it to our advantage"** Oliver scratched the back of his head.

 **"Our world is stranger than yours, we don't know if there will be any penalties, for all we know we could have made it worse. However, we couldn't just stand by and watch Central City disappear in a puff of smoke"** Caitlin relayed.

 **"Ok, so you say everything went wrong. Why?"** he asked. The speedster considered well what he was about to say. Any wrong moves and he might be the one that would start a whole new series of issues that they did not have in the previous timeline. After a bit, he spoke

 **"You did. When we fought Savage, your head wasn't in the game. You were not yourself, the plan that you made and we followed failed miserably"** Barry told his friend

 **"Why not? What happens to me?"** he asked with a surprised look on his face. He saw Flash fidgeting and he asked again with a sterner voice. **"Barry? Why not? I'm assuming you came back in time with the intention to fix everything. Come on, spit it out!"**

 **"Are you planning on giving me a hair and blood sample to run forensics on or maybe a DNA test in the near future?"** the Flash inquired and the Arrow nodded **"Well, I did in the last timeline. You were pretty shaken after, you changed almost instantly after seeing the results. Then Felicity found out and you had a pretty big fight. The sense of total breakup big fight, from what I managed to hear, it sounded like it was over between you two"**

 **"What was the fight about?"** Oliver wanted to know

 **"You were keeping secrets. I'm pretty sure you`re someone's father, Oliver. But in your stupid need to keep that to yourself you forgot to trust the woman that loves you. She had to find out on her own why you kept disappearing when the world was in danger and when she did, she didn't care at all about already having a child. She cared that you didn't trust her, enough to tell you to … well you get it"** Barry continued **"When we go up against Savage, your head isn't in the game, Kendra can't access her powers, the tech that the guys are coming up with to counter the staff does not work and everybody dies, Oliver. Not just our friend but an entire city full of people gets turned into a smoking hole in the ground. That's how bad it was"**

 **"This time they won't. This time we do things differently"** The speedsters could see the resolve returning in the archer's eyes. **"You go rest, eat, get some sleep. I doubt running through time is something relaxing that you do for fun"**

 **"No, it's pretty taxing, you might be right. Let's get some shut eye, Barry. WE need to get something to eat as well, my stomach has been silently grumbling ever since we arrived here"** Caitlin told him. The two went inside and Oliver made a conscience call. He went back into the house and asked Felicity to come outside with him.

 **"What is it?"** they were working and taking her off that seemed a bit strange for them

 **"I need to tell you something. You were right when you told me that I was acting weird. More than usual. Remember I told you that I want to figure things out myself before sharing them with you. I will have Barry check it later, but right now I have an idea of what happened and I thought you should know as well"** The archer told the blonde woman now looking rather worried

 **"Hey. It's fine. Whatever it is we can power through it as long as we're together"**

 **"Last time when we went to Central City, I met someone that I thought was dead. An old fling of mine which turned out to be very much alive and not only that, but she had a child"** the archer started **"My mother gave her money to leave Star City and never come back. Then she told me that person had died in a car crash. I went to their house and had a little chat with her. Turns out, the child might be mine. I will have Barry check the genetics after we finish the fight with Savage, but considering what I've seen, that possibility keeps getting higher and higher"** the archer expected a large backlash from the blonde. He knew her rather well and considering how much she loved him this could spark a fit of jealousy that could ruin everything they had. And then she surprised him

 **"Oh, that's all? I thought you had cancer or something"** She replied sighing like she had a large object taken off her chest.

 **"What do you mean, is that all?"** Oliver was stunned.

 **"Oliver, I know who you were. I know what you did for most of your life before you became the Arrow or got stranded on an island in the north China Sea for 5 years. Everybody knew you were a playboy who would sleep with anyone. I accepted that, because it's not who you are now and we're happy together. The fact that you might have a child with an unknown woman… doesn't really change anything between us. If he is indeed your child then that's how it is. I'm just glad you decided that you trust me enough to tell me. I think if I found that on my own I would be pretty pissed at you, maybe enough to tell you to buzz off. I can't say I'm happy to find out that you might have a child, but what actually counts is that you didn't try to keep this from me and came out with it, knowing that it might turn sour"** Felicity spoke softly at the archer who for maybe the first time in his relationship with her saw how much the woman in front of him really loved him. She was ready to accept another child in their lives if needed as long as it was his.

 **"I'm glad I told you too. Sometimes keeping secrets is not the best way to do things"** Oliver replied

 **"Oliver Queen admitting that keeping secrets is not a good thing? Who are you and what have you done with the person I love?"** Felicity started to laugh and then she continued **"We'll get through this just like we get through the problems with the black archer, the mirakuru soldiers, how we fight Darhk knowing that if he touches you he might simply murder you outright. Having an illegitimate child? Yeah ... that's far down on the list of things that can drive us apart. Heck, most of the other things on that list want to kill us. Worst your kid can do is hate you, just don't let him join the league of Assassins, because if he does that list will definitely be of all people that want to kill you"** She started to laugh holding his hand. Oliver instantly relaxed giving Felicity a smile.

 ** _"Barry was right"_** he thought to himself **_"sometimes it's not worth trying to fight your problems alone, especially if you have people that you know will support you no matter what happens"_**

They went back in the house and saw Barry and Caitlin sleeping on one of the couches with 10 empty boxes of pizza on the floor. Cisco looked at them and decided to take a picture for what he called _"further reference",_ which he was sure the engineer might use for blackmail later. He sent everyone to sleep, wherever they could. They all needed rest. Carter took a blanket and slept on the floor, the sofa next to him occupied by Kendra and Cisco. Oliver took him aside before calling Felicity out and told him that he has to be close to Kendra. Carter might be the one that was "fated" for her, but she loved him and the engineer was very fond of her even if he didn't share her feelings. The archer postulated that being around Cisco might help her way more than the training Carter was giving her. Laurel and Thea took one of the upstairs beds, he and Felicity took the other. Diggle found himself a nice armchair where he could relax and snooze it over. While falling asleep Oliver wondered if they did the same in the other timeline. Working now was paramount they had 24 hours to finish their plan, but rest was also important.

The next morning Barry and Oliver had woken up early. The speedster covered his girlfriend as to not get cold and went into the kitchen where he found his friend.

 **"Good morning, Barry"** the archer's eyes were clear and alert. Also, happy, which was a very welcomed change from the last timeline.

 **"Good morning, Ollie. How come you told everyone to go to sleep last night? Aren't we on a clock?"** Barry asked getting ingredients ready for food

 **"We are. But going tired into a battle is not a wise move. Besides, I took your advice and had a little chat with Felicity last night after you went to sleep. I told her about William, but since you didn't run the DNA test yet, I told her that I might have a child, not that you`re certain its mine"** Oliver followed his example and took out some ingredients as well and started making bacon and eggs for everyone.

 **"How did she take it?"** the speedster asked starting to make pancake batter on his side of the kitchen.

 **"Surprisingly well. I'm glad I told her. If she can take this so easy and told me she'll be here for me, then I'm pretty sure we can take whatever life throws at us"** Oliver smiled at the speedster who was surprised. He had never seen his broody friend gave a genuine smile to anyone. They were all either smirks or grins.

 **"I'm glad that worked out"** he replied

 **"Thank you"** the archer managed to say before Barry stopped him

 **"That's what friends are for Oliver. Even if it took the complete leveling of Central City to finally get you to come to your senses"** The two started to laugh while beginning to prepare food for everyone. They didn't notice the two women that were in the doorway watching them. Felicity and Caitlin had woken up themselves missing their respective partner.

 **"They act like they are brothers don't they?"** Felicity whispered.

 **"I think Ollie is the closest thing to a big brother that Barry has ever had"** Caitlin responded in the same low tone.

 **"What was that about the complete leveling of Central City though?"** the blonde asked getting back a cryptic answer.

 **"First rule of time travel, is that we don't talk about time travel"**

 **"Great, another Fight club fan"** Felicity almost face palmed herself making Caitlin chuckle. **"Wait, what? Time travel?"** her face turned to surprise when she finally processed what Frost had said, but she put her finger to her lips motioning Felicity to stop asking questions.

 **"Let's go help them, there is still coffee to be made"** Caitlin smiled and Felicity nodded. They both came up their respective men and kissed them good morning, starting to brew coffee and talk about what was about to happen that day.

Soon enough the house was filled with the smell of food and freshly brewed coffee. Everyone woke up and was surprised to find out that Barry and Oliver cooked and that Caitlin and Felicity had three large pots of coffee at the ready. When everybody woke up they decided to take breakfast outside, the kitchen and the living room were already too small for 10 people. In a flash of light the large table in the living room disappeared and chairs from all over the house went with them. Everyone went out back to find what was missing and the food on the table along with the coffee and plates, silverware and mugs for everyone.

 **"Wow, what brought this feast on?"** Cisco smiled while he sat down next to Kendra and Carter.

 **"We woke up too early and we decided everyone needed a nice breakfast. I don't think there has to be a reason for everything in this life"** Barry smiled at the group.

 **"Last night while we slept I had a strange dream"** Kendra told them **"I saw the first time that mad priest killed us. There was something, the staff that he used had two glowing gems for eyes. The same kind of rocks that fell from the sky. I think I know now how to beat Vandal Savage"**

 **"I have never been able to remember our first death, the one back in Egypt, as I have already mentioned. It must be the fact that you were a priestess back then. The people always spoke about them having some sort of powers"** Carter spoke

 **"During the middle kingdom Egypt experienced a spike in meteorite activity"** Felicity interjected prompting a wave of surprised looks from everyone at the table **"What, I know stuff, sure some of it might be irrelevant, but in this case, I'm certain it is not"** she smiled.

 **"Which is why we love you, but it doesn't seem to be helpful in stopping Savage"** Laurel smiled at the blonde.

 **"It's the calamity Professor Boardman was referencing. There were meteors that fell from the sky. They glowed, and the staff of Horus, had two gemstones with the exact same glow"** Kendra explained.

 **"Egyptians would use meteor rocks in their craftsmanship. Their lore could treat them as gifts from the gods"** Felicity told them

 **"The gemstones might be from the same element the meteorites were from"** Barry offered.

 **"And the meteorite glow in proximity to each other"** Caitlin added.

 **"Like sun crystals"** Cisco quipped

 **"Wait, is the Indiana Jones reference the only thing that I understand from this conversation?"** Thea asked quite confused.

 **"Then you are right. The gauntlets won't work because they are missing a critical element. Two pieces of the same rock, like an Nth metal, that is the key to counteracting the staff. Without it I doubt they would have worked, if Kendra is right about what she saw"** Cisco realized.

 **"Believe it or not, this isn't the craziest thing that I heard coming out of this group"** Oliver smirked looking at Barry and Caitlin.

 **"There's a sample of a meteorite from the Middle Kingdom at the Keystone City Museum"** Felicity told them. Barry and Caitlin were already gone having finished their breakfast. The others took their coffees and went inside. They returned after about 2 minutes with a piece of blue rock.

 **"I can synthesize a compatible isotope from this meteor and coat the gauntlets with it"** Cisco left the room to analyze the stone he asked for help and Barry, Caitlin and Felicity were glad to lend assistance.

The speedster couple was running tests on the rock while Cisco was trying to make something compatible without destroying the meteorite. They would have to take it back to the museum after.

Cisco and Felicity were already used to the way the two people worked. The usual dance of lightning was a delight to see to anyone who had seen it before. The rest, just sat in the door amazed. The light show was beautiful, at one point Thea even took a chair and put it in the doorway just to watch them work.

 **"Do they always do that?"** Laurel asked surprised.

 **"Yes. When they decide to do something together and get it done fast this is what usually follows"** Felicity commented.

 **"It's beautiful"** Thea smiled

 **"It looks like they are perfectly in sync with each other"** Diggle rubbed his eyes and looked again. He would still not be able to get used to the two and their powers.

 **"More like they`re dancing with one another, but separately"** Kendra commented prompting a _"I know right?"_ look from Felicity. They decided to go cleanup the table and the remains of the breakfast they had outside while the others finished their work. Thea returned after all the work was done to watch the light show. What she saw was something that she would probably not see again for a long time, she wanted to take in the beauty that the two speedsters produced. Being trained in the ways of the assassins she started to see patterns in their movements, akin to what Oliver saw the first time when they were working together. The archer peeked in

 **"Those two know where they are every second of every minute when they are working together, don't they?"** Thea asked her brother

 **"Yes, the fact that they can move faster than sound and that they can talk in their minds, makes their work almost seamless. They have taken working in sync to a whole new level. That is something that can only be obtained with their link. While I do think that using only their speed could yield similar results, since the last time Barry talked about it he said it was like the world stands still when they do that, their bond is the next level"** The archer offered an opinion keeping his voice low, he didn't want to disturb the people that were hard at work to make sure that Central City wouldn't end up as a smoking crater … again.

The deadline was approaching rapidly when the tech team came out with the gauntlets. Cisco was sure now that they would work since when he put the rock to the gauntlets, their surface began to glow.

 **"Ok, Savage does not know that Kendra has full access to her abilities. So she will be our ace in the hat. Frost and I will provide cover fire, Barry you run in and take the staff, because you will be wearing the gauntlets."** Oliver started to reveal his plan.

 **"Where do you want us?"** Diggle asked.

 **"Suit up. We might need backup in case Savage does not take to our distraction. You will provide support to myself and Frost. Covering Barry and the two hawk people while we take him on"** the archer told them. Barry and Caitlin smiled at each other

 ** _"We're all going this time"_** she told him mentally

 ** _"Seems like Oliver realized during this time that we're a team. And everybody counts in a team"_** he nodded.

 ** _"It makes sense, the last time he lost Felicity because of his stupid need to keep secrets. He didn't want to lose anyone else in the fight with Savage. Somehow I understand his thinking, but I think the simple reason we lost that fight is that it was JUST the five of us, with no backup from anyone else. I guess we shall see what happens, it's already way better than the previous version"_** Caitlin smiled and he took her hand in his.

They went back to the warehouse and prepared their ambush. Everyone was in position including the people that were not there last time Oliver and Barry were talking in a corner.

 **"Ollie, are you sure about this?"** the speedster asked

 **"About changing the future? No. But I doubt anything is worse than turning Central City in a smoking hole in the ground"** he responded

 **"That's what I'm worried about"** the reply came.

 **"Then don't. I cannot think of something worse than what happened. Even if someone dies, or someone gets hurt, the outcome will still be better. Let's do this"** the archer said with conviction in his voice as they went to wait for savage to make the exchange.

The fight went differently this time. Carter and Kendra were keeping the madman busy and when they went down the others sprang into action. Even if they weren't more than distractions, Laurel managed to make Savage drop his staff with her Canary cry. Just enough for Barry to grab a hold of it. The gauntlets worked this time as the Flash turned the staff toward Savage and began attacking him with a constant stream of energy. His shield still managed to absorb the blast, but soon everyone joined in. Frost was hitting him with concentrated ice beams from one side, Canary from another side while Carter and Kendra managed to get the others out.

Oliver didn't leave. Seeing that most of the staff's power that kept the others from touching it was going into the gauntlets that Barry was wearing, he went and put his hands on it himself helping Barry to direct an even stronger beam into the immortal madman.

The blue shield began to buckle, Savage's legs already started to freeze from the beams that Frost was putting out, their intensity only growing as she saw her boyfriend putting all his power into the staff. Barry and Oliver put their last ditch effort in a large blast that completely overpowered Savage's shield and turned him into dust. The backlash from the energy burst made the staff disappear and the dust started flying all over the room. Frost collapsed from overexertion, Barry seeing that her cells were almost near depletion. Flash was near her in a second supporting her to stand up.

 **"This seems way too much like Déjà vu"** Laurel commented, Barry and Caitlin looked at Oliver and smiled.

 **"You aren't the only one"** The archer replied getting his bow from the ground.

 **"Did we do it? Is he gone?"** Kendra asked running back to the heroes.

 **"He's gone"** the speedster managed to talk **"So much for being immortal, he's nothing more than dust in the wind"** He made an inadvertent pun which made everyone chuckle and a few people laugh, even if the pun in itself wasn't that good, the people were happy that everything was over.

The next day after everything had been taken care of, Barry went to the lab and ran the DNA on the samples that Oliver gave him and to no surprise they came out positive. William was indeed his child. The team split Cisco giving Carter and Kendra an emblem for their suits with communicators and a GPS tracker. In case they were ever in trouble. Everyone got back into their cars and left, except Barry, Caitlin, Oliver and Felicity.

 **"I really don't know if I should implicate myself in William's life"** Oliver smiled bitterly **"It's a known fact that I can't keep my life and the Arrow separate. I would not want him to see such a world"**

 **"Ollie, take it from someone that grew up without a father. You being in his life can only lead to good things. You're a good man I think the kid would appreciate having you around. Besides, if you screw up and go all broody on him, I think Felicity can give you a swift kick in the ass and keep you on the right path"** Barry reasoned with the man that he had begun to consider as his brother.

 **"You know I will, Barry. Besides, it will give us more chances to come visit you guys"** Felicity smiled

 **"Hey, Ms. Smoak. You still didn't manage to come and upgrade out cyber security systems. Should we expect you, or do I really need to write you a note like from … owner to VP?"** Barry told her with the same corporate voice that he used back that day when he surprised her by buying Palmer Tech.

 **"Don't worry, Barry. I will get right on that. I won't call you Mr. Allen. If I remember correctly you did say that if I call anything other than Barry you would fire me"** She responded in the same tone but not being able to hold her laughter, hearing Caitlin's laugh. Barry joined them soon after leaving Oliver confused. He had never heard that authoritative tone from the speedster. Even though Felicity told him everything that happened that day.

 **"I guess we shall see more of each other from now on then"** Oliver added extending a hand toward Barry.

 **"You can bet your bow and arrow on that"** The speedster shook his hand and pulled him into a hug. Oliver was not a hugger, but he decided to let it slide this time. The two got into Felicity's car and drove away as the two speedsters went back home. They wanted some peace and quiet for a change and some time to themselves.

Barry put a call to his broker, he remembered that Eobard used to make money off the Arrow merchandise. He talked with someone he knew that took care of the companies and everything else, patenting the Green Arrow merchandise and anything related to Speedy. Those two small companies were immediately transferred under the umbrella of the larger one that took care of anything Flash and Frost related.

The last request the speedster had of the broker was that he was to make transfer papers of the two specific companies. He wanted the done as soon as possible, because they were supposed to be either a surprise or a gift for the man that he started to consider more of a brother than a mentor. He knew that the Queen family had some money issues, well that they were broke after what Oliver's mother did, so his thought was that some extra money would help them.


	33. Christmas

Bit of a longer chapter this week, wanted to split it, but i didn't want to leave a cliffhanger that would annoy even me.

Enjoy

* * *

Christmas was nearing and Barry was really on edge. He had no idea what do get his girlfriend. It was surprising at how much time they spent together and talked, she did not make any sort of request about anything that she might have wanted. The dilemma was real and there were only a few days left until the holidays making him act stranger than usual, something that she picked up. He had something in his mind for a while now, but didn't know when it would be a good time for something like that. Joe invited them as usual to the Christmas party at his house, but they didn't make any sort of Christmas shopping.

The situation worsened when they got called to the CCPD where Joe was waiting for them with rather grim news.

 **"I think Santa hates us"** the detective told them **"We just got an alert from Iron Heights that James Jesse has escaped. Not only him but Captain Cold seems to be missing as well"**

 **"Great, Just great. That's all we need for Christmas, Mr. Frosty and the Joker"** Barry said with a sarcastic tone looking at Caitlin

 **"We need to go to the prison and see what else we can find on this. Meet you two there?"** Joe asked.

 **"Yeah. We'll take the ... faster way"** Caitlin responded and they were both gone out the door.

When they got to the prison there wasn't much that they could gather in the evidence column. A blizzard appeared out of nowhere and knocked out all the cameras and the security systems. There was no trace of Mardon, Jesse or Snart anywhere. Suddenly Barry felt a headache coming on.

 **"If Mardon is back on the scene, Patty might not be thinking so clearly"** Joe told them

 **"What does Mardon have to do with Patty?"** Caitlin inquired. Joe wanted to put them up to speed but the two encountered her in the next room looking at the shards of ice that were on the floor.

 **"I should have expected this. The sudden drop in barometric pressure means that he's back in town"** She said with fire in her eyes.

 **"What is this grudge you have against Mardon?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"Look, you two don't really have much idea of what's going on in the city and right now I don't have the time to put you up to speed"** Parry hissed.

 **"That's ironic, considering instead of telling us what you just did you could have used that time to actually answer Caitlin's question"** Barry hissed back to her.

 **"With no offense to either of you this is something I have to do. It's the reason I joined this metahuman task force. It's personal which means that I don't have to talk about it with either of you"** Patty was holding strong.

 **"Patty, you know what I can do. Being a doctor I can simply recommend to captain Singh that you get taken off of the investigation due to your high stress levels and lack of focus. It's not really something I would like to do, but I will considering your abnormal behavior"** Caitlin told her coldly

 **"No!"** she yelled **"Mardon is mine. Don't you dare do anything that could compromise that"**

 **"Or what?"** Barry chimed in with a rather calm voice **"Or are you forgetting police procedure that clearly states if a detective is personally involved in a case and exhibits lack of judgement and stress they are to be taken off that case and put on administrative leave until said case is resolved?"** Barry stood by his girlfriend. He knew exactly what Caitlin was trying to achieve.

 **"I can't believe you two. You would have Singh take me off this case?"** she inquired with a raised tone in her voice almost like threatening them through her words.

 **"That's where you are wrong. We wanted to give you a heads up. Get your head back in the game, follow the clues and get that criminal behind bars. If you were alone and wanted to crash and burn, we might not have gotten involved, but you are also Joe's partner on this one since Eddie took a few days off to spend holidays with his family. If your mind is all over the place because of this obvious grudge you have against the guy you can get yourself and worse off Joe over there killed. So take a seat, a few deep breaths, count to 10 and stop being so erratic"** Caitlin stated bluntly

 **"Calm down and do what a detective does. If we see you just one more time as distraught and as off center as we've seen you now, you will fly off this case faster than a sniper bullet out of its barrel. No offense to you, Detective Spivot, but I won't let your personal issues put yourself or my father in danger. It's your call, but we will do what's needed"** Barry put accent on her formal name. He usually called her Patty, but calling her Detective Spivot with a strong impactful tone managed to wake her up from her frenzy. She instantly felt bad about yelling at the two people that helped her whenever and with whatever she needed without asking for anything in return. There were countless times when Barry or Caitlin had run tests on things that had no connection to any of her cases just to give her a lead.

 **"I'm sorry for yelling at you"** She sat down on a bench outside the prison **" I don't know if Joe told you the story of why this guy is so important to me. Mark Mardon killed my father. He shot him in cold blood for a few hundred dollars. This case is something that is deeply personal, I want to bring that killer to justice and even ask for the death penalty if I could"**

 **"Been there, done that"** Barry asked holding his girlfriend next to him.

 **"What do you mean?"** the detective threw him an inquisitive look.

 **"Harrison Wells was the man that murdered my mother and worked with him for almost a year. I trusted him and he helped me. You saw the news. My dad was finally cleared of her murder, but ... yeah. I've been where you are. Anger won't help you. Fighting to get revenge won't help you either. Either of those can have you into making dumb choices. One serious mistake and the man that killed your father walks away on a technicality because you were too distraught to do your job right. Think about it. In the end the only thing that will is the conviction that you will be getting justice for your father and all the other people Mardon has killed"** Barry continued rather slowly

 **"Thank you. I needed a bit of a slap in the face. I think you`re right, if we do finally catch him and he gets away because of something I screwed up then I don't think I would be able to ever forgive myself. Don't worry, I'll make sure that me and Joe don't get killed while we're going after this guy"** Patty acknowledged

 **"Good and as long as you`re doing your work you know how to reach us to help by doing ours"** Caitlin smiled toward the woman that was going back inside.

 **"I don't think I've seen her so disturbed my anything. Good job back there with taunting her to spit out her anger"** Barry looked at his beautiful girlfriend as they were walking toward the town.

 **"Yeah. I had to be a bit of a busybody, but I had to make her realize that anger is not something you keep inside, because it will eat you, you will make mistakes and you can get yourself killed. Or even worse, you can get others killed"** Caitlin replied to him

 **"That's coming from an expert at keeping feelings in, huh?"** he quipped making her look at him funny

 **"Yes. I used to be like that, but thanks to a certain adorkable idiot who managed to tie me down and make me tell him all my problems, I'm not that person anymore"** Caitlin grinned at him

 **"Tied you down? There you go again. Darling, what's with you and ropes? That's the second time you brought that up"** Barry tried to tell her with a straight face and then cracked into a laugh.

 **"Maybe you are right, your girlfriend could be into kinky stuff"** she winked at him kissing his cheek as they flashed back into the city

The surprises kept coming Joe had asked them to get Iris home safe because they knew that Snart knew who he was and, surprise, when they entered the West residence, there he was. Sitting in a chair sipping some hot cocoa like it was nobody's business.

 **"Ho, ho, ho"** the villain smiled holding a bear mug with both hands **"Don't worry I'm not here to freeze you to death, although I doubt I could with the Maiden of Ice over there protecting you"** he took another sip **"ugh, cocoa isn't cocoa without the mini marshmallows and you`re all out of those. I checked. Come, sit"** he motioned for the three that took seats on the couch Barry next to Iris and Caitlin in his lap.

 **"So why are you here, Lenny?"** Barry asked the criminal that was now smiling at them

 **"I got the Noel spirit. So I wanted to give you a little heads up. Mardon broke Jesse and me out of prison so we would help him kill you. The nut is on board, of course, he's shaking with excitement or maybe from lack of medication, I don't know. Me… I'm going to pass"** Snart spoke in his usual snarky tone

 **"Why now, did you suddenly grow a conscience?"** Iris asked him.

 **"Not really. Mardon wants revenge, Jesse wants chaos. Those two are good enough reasons for what they are trying to do. Me, however, I hold no ill will toward you. I'm a thief … I want money, that is my driving force. When there's no money involved … I just don't feel that invested in the whole thing. I don't really do good working nonprofit"** Cold replied quite bluntly

 **"So why not tell us where they are?"** Caitlin asked him

 **"There's no point in doing that. Consider me a secret Santa. Besides, I know you people, you love solving good mysteries"** He got up to leave and neither Barry nor Caitlin tried to stop him, something that completely surprised Iris, who was expecting the two superheroes to haul his ass back to prison as soon as they found him.

 **"Lenny, I hate to break it to you, but that right there, that is called honor"** Caitlin told him and the villain smiled.

 **"I'm still not helping you catch them, Frosty. Let's call this even for helping Lisa when she had her … explosive problem"** He grinned

 **"You know Snart, you`re doing a pretty lousy job of being a villain this week"** the Flash smiled at him

 **"Merry Christmas, Barry, Caitlin and a happy New Year"** he answered having a large smirk on his face as he was leaving the house.

 **"You were right about Snart, Barry"** Caitlin told him **"He does have honor. Even if it's thief's honor"** Barry smiled and nodded. Iris was still shocked but all right.

 **"Just out of personal interest, why didn't one of you haul his ass off to prison? He did escape from there"** Iris managed to speak as the two were getting up from the couch

 **"There are other criminals way worse than Cold. He is a thief, yes, but he is smart enough to pull off heists without victims. We have seen him do that on several occasions. So you could say that we're leaving him to the police"** Caitlin smiled at her while Barry continued her thought

 **"We have a small understanding with him. As long as he doesn't kill anyone, we just let the police handle him. To be fair, there are many more other people out there that are far worse and more dangerous that a criminal that has a cold gun but doesn't kill, don't you think, Iris?"**

 **"I guess you`re right. Besides, he did come here peacefully as far as I've seen at least. He gave us information and told us what to watch out for. You were right Caitlin, He does have an honor, even if it's just a thief's honor"** Iris realized that herself.

 **"Sometimes, Iris, even a thief's honor is better than no honor at all"** She smiled back at the person who nodded in agreement

As with a bad day, the surprises kept coming. The trickster was at it again with his bad excuse for jokes. This time, since it was nearing Christmas, he decided that a good tactic would be to put bombs in children's presents that were distributed all around the city. If the Flash didn't surrender to him at midnight, he would blow everything. Cisco was working on a wand that would drain Mardon of his powers, but when they managed to find out where he was via the satellites that were tracking abnormal atmospheric phenomena, he managed to get away by doing something Barry couldn't. He managed to fly away and with the wand not finished … Barry lost him in the sky above Central City.

Surprisingly enough Jay and Harry managed to put away their differences and helped to defuse the bomb situation. They managed to change the dimensional frequency of one of the bombs the Flash brought them and throw it into a breach. They had learned this with Grodd, if the frequency was changed then the bombs would all be sucked into the breach leaving the citizens of Central City safe. Their plan worked, just in a nick of time, since it was nearly midnight when the Flash met with the two as per their demands. However, with the bombs gone after being sucked through the breach and with Frost holding the wand that Cisco had just finished, the two villains were done for. Mardon could not use his powers to counteract Frost's attacks as long as she had the device activated and the trickster, well he was just a normal human and a quite old one at that. He could definitely not keep up with the speed that the Flash had.

The two criminals were soon put away, Jesse went to Iron Heights and Mardon was locked in the pipeline in a cell that would absorb his powers every time he tried to use them. Cisco had thrown in a dose of nanites for good measure that would render him unconscious if he ever managed to get out of the cell's perimeter.

This had cost them a day. The next day was Christmas Eve and Barry still had no idea what to get his girlfriend and worse than that, neither of them did any sort of Christmas shopping or made any sort of plans as to what they would do.

They woke up the next morning as they usually did and being lazy Barry flashed to Jitters and brought coffee. On the way back his mind was working like a machine. A few thousand thoughts were condensed into one. He had to make sure she didn't hear it. Their bond had been getting stronger the last few months and without a measure of control, any thought he uttered would be heard by her. He thought about how much he loved the woman. Her smile and her being there every morning for him to wake up to. Everything that happened up to this point, coupled with the fact that he had no idea what to get her for Christmas, of course the last thought didn't count nearly as much as the others, made him take a decision that he didn't even consider when someone else was involved. He smiled at the finality of the choice he made in his head. Today would be the day to put that into action. He closed up that line of thought with the timing in mind and returned back to the apartment.

 **"I just realized that we haven't done any sort of Christmas shopping. We still have until tonight to take care of them"** He said with a bit of disdain on his face.

 **"Not the person that likes shopping, huh?"** she smiled toward him.

 **"I do not have problems with shopping as long as I'm with you and I do like Christmas shopping, but I do not like crowds. Imagine how it's going to be in town today with everyone doing stuff at the last minute. Besides, speeding into a street where you have space to move is one thing, speeding in a crowd is almost impossible unless you want people flying around like ragdolls from the impacts"** He said a bit unnerved.

 **"Well, we could just … I don't know … run on their heads?"** she started to laugh while saying that **"We just need to decide what to get everyone that's coming to the party, maybe decorate our apartment, get some cheesecake ready and that's about it. We can do that, can't we?"** she smirked.

 **"The deciding what to get everyone at the party might be the most difficult thing to do"** he replied **"Where do you keep your Christmas decorations?"**

 **"In the storage space outside this apartment. Where you put them last year, you dork"** the speedster was gone for a few seconds and then returned.

 **"All right. I've brought them all inside. I also went and bought a tree. Come see if you like it"** He managed to leave her with her mouth open. The tree was beautiful a rich lush green color and was not too tall, just perfect for her little apartment. Correction, their little apartment.

 **"I love it, Barry, it's beautiful"** she squealed with joy. They put a notepad on the table with everyone's name on it and as they had ideas they would put them down what to buy for who. Barry put all the decorations in the apartment, but left the tree intact as they decided to decorate the tree together.

 **"This is our first Christmas together as a couple so, I would like if we did the tree. The house is how it is, but decorating the tree with the person that you love, is something entirely different"** Barry commented looking at Caitlin who blushed.

 **"Oh, I remember from last Christmas how nice that was. You know, you should have been an interior decorator"** Caitlin smiled at him looking at the intricacy of the decoration what were already put up around the apartment.

 **"Nah. I like to decorate once a year, but more than that it would probably get boring and I would run out of ideas pretty soon. Besides I love what we do in our "spare" time"** he quipped.

 **"So do I"** she grabbed some ornaments and started to hang them on the tree with him putting up strands of glimmering snowflakes on top of her ornaments **"I never really had a happy Christmas, except last year when everything amazing that happened was because I dared you to make my holiday better, something that I would look forward to. You know I never got along with my mother. Usually when we were little it was just me and Ronnie with juice and pizza while mother was out at parties and stuff. She didn't even bother herself to get us a tree. Not that she didn't have money, she didn't care that much"**

 **"Then I will make it my standing mission that Christmas from now on is a holiday you enjoy and love"** Barry smiled toward her. The wording seemed strange to Caitlin who looked at him inquisitively, but then shrugged the feeling off as he started to sing carols while they were busy decorating. She knew she had an awful voice, but hearing him sing was always a treat to the ears. She went up to him and kissed his neck holding him tight.

 **"Keep singing. You have a beautiful voice. I want to hear it more"** she quipped making him smile. They continued hanging ornaments from the tree until the box was empty. In that time the list that was on the table was almost full. They managed to fill almost everyone's name with something that they could buy for that person.

 **"We should go buy the stuff we set out for everyone. Its nearly noon and we still have to wrap them and package them and make the cheesecake until we need to go to Joe's later"** Barry said looking at quite the long list they had on their hands.

 **"Yes. I hope we still find the stuff we want"** she replied as they were both in their town clothes in seconds and went down the stairs to hail a cab

First stop was the mall. They got alcohol for the people that they had no idea what present to buy. A few bottles of expensive wine, some tequila and some special, very expensive, whiskey for Joe. Even though they knew he rarely drank, some quality booze was always welcome.

Second stop was the comic book store where Barry had ordered a mint condition comic for Cisco. It was something that the nerd in him would enjoy immensely and two bags of super bouncing balls for Bette. Barry had the idea that if the balls could be thrown off surfaces and not explode instantly she could make some pretty awesome trick shots when she wanted to surprise the enemy.

Last stop was at a jewelry store. Caitlin wanted something to give Iris that she would remember and she finally settles on a silver hairpin with black stones. Barry had no comment because he bought Eddie a pair of onyx cuffs that her knew were going to fit beautifully with his Groom outfit.

The whole trip took a bit over 2 hours and they stopped at a pizzeria to eat as well after everything. That left them short of another hour. They returned home and had the ingredients for the cheesecake ready and in the oven in under 15 minutes. Then Barry did something a bit unexpected.

 **"Cait, I need to head over to Joe's for a bit"** he lied through his teeth trying to hide the real reason he needed to go there **" He asked me a bit ago to come help him to put up the tree and stuff, since now he's basically alone. You don't mind being solo for a bit right?"** he asked.

 **"Not really. I can get these presents wrapped up and the cheesecake done before you come back. You won't take long through will you?"** she asked.

 **"No, 15 – 20 minutes at the most. Just helping him bring in the tree and the decorations and I think that's it. If he needs help with anything that will take longer than that I'll call and maybe you can head over there when you finish"** her answer came.

 **"Ok. I'll be here, if and when you call. Someone needs to keep an eye on this cheesecake. Come back soon, don't make me miss you too much"** she kissed him on the lips hard drawing him toward her **"I love you"**

 **"I love you too, Cait. Be right back"** he let her go as he sped toward Joe's house. He found the detective indeed struggling to get his tree in the house and before he knew it the tree was securely in place, the house was decorated and the ornaments for the tree were out, with himself being deposited on the couch in the living room watching everything get done at super speed.

 **"Hey, Bar. To what do I owe the honor of you showing up early to something"** Joe laughed.

 **"Oh come on, Joe. Last year we were early for the party as well. Don't make me remind you that I'm often on time these days. I came back for this"** Barry pulled a box out of his coat pocket with his mother's ring inside **"I realized why you said that I might need this very soon"** he smiled toward his adoptive father **"Also I lied to Cait to come get this and told her that I would help you with the tree and decorations. Which apparently I just did. So it's not a lie. I always feel bad lying to her even if it's just to surprise her"** Barry said

 **"So you`re finally going to propose. I was wondering when that would happen. Ever since I saw the two of you together back then on the road to Starling, I knew that this day would be here, sooner or later, that's why I was surprised when you didn't take it at the time of you moving in with her"** Joe looked at him with a very surprised face **"What brought this on now? Or you don't really have a reason, you just want to do it?"**

 **"I woke up this morning with her next to me, then I was hit with the impression that I want that to happen for the rest of my life. Wake up to this beautiful, smart, sexy woman whose smile make me feel the world is right and nothing can go wrong. Over the last year the simple things, the kisses, the cooking, walking down the street hand in hand while looking at the sunset, the cleaning of the apartment, the running together, the road trips we took and everything in between made me realize that I don't want any of that to end. I love Caitlin so much and even if I might seem childish and a bit abrupt, this is the decision I took because I want to. Even the injuries we take fighting metahumans, the fact that we save the city together. I want to be with her, Joe"** Barry explained his sudden decision to his father.

 **"I knew all of that. At first I didn't want to see it, I thought you would be hung up on Iris, but the connection you share, the way you look at each other when you think nobody else can see you, the way that you bring out the best in one another and the worst, when that is the case. Yes, she told me a while back that when you fought the Reverse Flash you would have killed him without remorse if he even tried to harm one hair on her head. That is what love is Barry. You want someone to be by your side until the day you die and by looking at you two I realized that Iris, even if she regrets Eddie and wants to come back to you later, she doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell compared to Caitlin"** the old detective said to his son. **"Here, I want you to have this"** he took off his watch and gave it to Barry.

 **"Joe, I don't think I can accept something like that"** the speedster tried to backtrack.

 **"It's yours. I always thought that I would give this to my son when it was time. And you are my son"** Joe said looking at the man in front of him **"I am very proud of you and of the decision you just made. You have grown up and I am very proud to be your father"** He stopped regaining his composure, then smirked **"So, how are we going to do this? Do you have anything planned or just … wing it"** The questions came as a bit of a hammer in his face. He did indeed have nothing planned. His mind started to race again finding ways to have a beautiful proposal for the woman he loved, but he was drawing up a blank. Then he decided to go with the first thing that came in his mind.

 **"Nothing planned. Definitively winging it. I'm going to leave this here with you"** he scribbled a note on a large piece of paper and put it in a box. Underneath the note he put the box with the ring inside and then closed the box and wrapped it with a note on top _"To my Caitlin Snow, the one that managed to get me out of my own personal Frost"_ The old detective took a bit and read what his son wrote on the large piece of paper.

 **"Quite catchy, if you ask me"** Joe smiled and Barry answered.

 **"Oh god, that just means it's corny as hell. Oh well, it's not like I'm some smooth talker or anything. I wrote that note because I know for a fact that I suck at making speeches. Proposing to her with other people around might be something I don't really want to do"** they looked at each other and started to laugh **"At the party you make sure she sees you put this under the tree. Later when the presents will be opened at the party she will find this since it had her name on it and we shall go from there"**

 **"Barry, isn't that a bit corny? I mean putting the ring in a Christmas present?"** the old detective asked.

 **"Joe, this will be her Christmas present. It's corny, yes but I know she never properly enjoyed the holiday until now, with the exception of last year when it was still because of us. I intend this one to be something she will remember for years to come. I think I have another idea. Give me a minute"** He went and dialed an unknown number.

 **"Hello? Yes, it's me. How long do you need to prepare the partnership papers that we talked about a while back?"** he paused for a bit **"I see, oh they are already done? Good. There's going to be something in it for you as well, for making sure you did what I asked in record time. Call it a Christmas Bonus for a job well done. I will send Detective Joe West from the CCPD to collect the papers as I will more than likely be indisposed. Yes. Thank you and a Merry Christmas to you as well"** he closed the line

 **"What was that about?"** Joe asked.

 **"Nothing. I just figured I can take a hint from the possible future we saw in the Gideon room. Can you drop by this address and pick up the papers I told you before the party and hand them to me privately when I arrive?"** Barry asked giving the old detective a slip of paper and Joe nodded. **"Thank you. I shall see you later. Don't let anyone see that present of the whole thing will blow over and it will turn into a very embarrassing venture for me"**

 **"You never talked about what it was that you actually saw in that room. What do you mean you want to take a hint?"** the detective asked him with an inquisitive look on his face.

 **"I don't think I can tell you very much, but this would be the cliff notes version. Barry and Caitlin Allen, owners of STAR Labs. That is what the computer in that room recognized us as. Apparently in that future we were married as well and co-owned the Labs. I thought I would take a page out of there, so I had my broker draw up some papers that would do exactly that. As it stands now I don't know what happened in that timeline, but this time around it was only me that received the labs"** The speedster explained in not so many words.

The speedster exited the West residence leaving a surprised Joe with a neatly wrapped gift in his hand. He was smiling, he had never seen Barry as happy or as giddy as that moment ever before in his life. He immediately put something on and drove to the city to get the papers that his son asked him to get, having a feeling that he will not have the time to do it later in the day.

Barry ran back home to find Caitlin sitting on the sofa looking at Disney movies. In less than 20 minutes she had managed to finish packing the gifts neatly and beautifully with bows and messages and she was taking a break, checking on the cheesecake that was baking in the oven to make sure it didn't get overcooked.

 **"Was I gone long?"** He smiled sitting down next to her on the couch

 **"Nope, you said 20 minutes, you were barely gone 15. I guess you pulled the whole "high speed decorating" trick on Joe too?"** She smiled coming closer to him to feel his warmth and taking his hand in hers.

 **"Yea, I had to. He had barely done anything when I arrived. The tree was still unpacked, the decorations were still in the cellar"** Barry sighed.

 **"So why didn't you stay with him to help him decorate the old way?"** She asked surprised.

 **"I left him the tree. But I didn't want to have my beautiful girlfriend get to get lonely or as she eloquently put it earlier "to miss me too much" I think that was it, yeah"** He grinned giving her a short peck on the cheek.

 **"You know what? The cheesecake is done. Let me grab some special attire for the party and you grab yours too. We'll put them in a bag and go help Joe with his tree decorating and whatever else he might have to do for this party, just like we did last year. What do you say to that?"** Caitlin smiled knowing that Joe was still alone and maybe some company would not hurt the old detective.

 **"You sure, Cait?"** he asked surprised.

 **"Yes. We can have tomorrow all to ourselves. Today is going to be about family and Joe is yours and to be fair mine as well. We have gotten close over the time that he has helped us with various things and I don't want him to be alone while doing preparations on Christmas Eve. Besides, now it's more like tradition since we did that last year too, no reason not to do it now as well"** she replied sternly. Barry looked at her and smiled brightly.

 **"All right, Cait. Grab what you want to wear to the party. I'll put the gifts in a bag and the cheesecake in something we can run around with"** he started speeding around the room while she went in the bedroom and looked at the dresser. She had a lot to wear, but her favorite still remained the dress that she wore to their first official _"rich people"_ dinner. She grabbed that and the necklace that came with it. Put some of her makeup in the bag as well and a pair of stilettos that went with the dress and she was out.

 **"I'm done. Now you go pick something for yourself to wear. Something classy"** she smiled. He took a peek into the bag that she had while speeding toward the bedroom and put inside the matching outfit. The same that he wore that night as well as the added tie tack and a pair of cufflinks that he had made with the same symbol and came out with a second bag.

 **"Are we safe to speed over with the cheesecake? I don't want our work to be ruined by the time we got there"** She asked.

 **"It should be safe. It's fluffy, but I doubt our speed will affect it that much. If it does I can just go pick up some other ingredients and we can make another one at Joe's place. The baking will be the one that will take some time, with our speed we can whip up another cheesecake batter in seconds"** Barry answered. They finished arranging everything and getting what they needed safe for their high speed run in less than an hour **"You ready?"** He asked. Caitlin nodded and grabbed the two bags with clothes and the cheesecake, Barry grabbed the bag with all the gifts and they sped over to Joe's who was still in the process of decorating the tree. She left the clothes in his room and put the cheesecake on the counter in the kitchen. Barry followed half a second later, the rushes of wind announcing their arrival

 **"Barry, Caitlin. I didn't expect you to come this early. There's like another hour till the meeting time"** Joe smiled at the two.

 **"We decided that you shouldn't be alone on Christmas Eve while preparing for a party"** Caitlin told him and he understood instantly. They wanted to keep him company as they promised when Barry moved out.

 **"Well, grab yourself some eggnog and you can help me decorate the tree then. This seems like déjà vu"** He smiled **"Thank you for thinking about me"** he said toward Caitlin while Barry was in the kitchen **"I know I host the party every year, but before now I had Iris and Barry help. Last year, Iris was gone, but you came. I had no idea there's so much to do when you`re alone"**

 **"Well, we kind of figured that you needed some extra hands to help, after Barry came back and told me you barely had the tree ready and he sped around the house putting up the decorations"** She smirked

 **"He does have a flair for decorating doesn't he?"** the old man smiled toward what he knew would soon become his daughter in law. He could not fathom her saying no at this point, but stayed his excitement and made sure that he didn't give anything away. He didn't have any sort of link with her, but him acting way too happy was out of character and might have attracted attention enough for her to catch on that something was up.

 **"I told him that already. Maybe quite a job in it if he ever stops wanting to be the Flash"** she smiled starting to help Joe to put up ornaments on the tree.

 **"That guy wanting to stop being the Flash? Yeah good luck with that. As long as he has you by his side I doubt he'll ever want to stop saving the city"** Joe's words came down on her like a hammer.

 **"Are you saying that he's doing it because of me?"** she asked with a bit of worry in her voice.

 **"Nope. Not what I meant. As long as you will be doing this with him, he will never stop being the Flash. If you haven't noticed the past year you two have been almost attached at the hip. He is doing it because he loves saving people, yes that is true. But he is doing it also because he loves spending time with you. Frankly, I'm quite surprised that you haven't figured that out yet. It's impossible that you would be THAT dense"** Joe told her chuckling and made her realize one simple thing. She was also going out as Frost in part because Barry was with her. She enjoyed their time saving the city immensely and she would not trade that for anything else in the world.

 **"There is enough eggnog for 30 people and another batch that's in the fridge. The cheesecake didn't get damaged in our run and its now put on a tray and cut and everyone can take it whenever they want. Is there anything food wise that we have to take care of?"** Barry asked plopping into the room with a gust of wind.

 **"Not that I know of. Besides you know, Barry this was never a party with food. Just stuff that we just bring and an excuse to be with each other. Call it…"** he got cut off by Caitlin

 **"A simple family gathering where you spend time with your family and talk and enjoy their company. This is not a family dinner like thanksgiving"**

 **"Although with you two here, I might have to order 20 or so pizzas just to be sure you don't fall on your face from starvation"** the detective started to laugh when Caitlin's stomach started to grumble.

 **"It's fine. Give me a few minutes, I'll go to Coast City and grab us a few pizzas from there"** Barry put on his suit and went out the door. It took him 30 minutes and he was back with 15 pizzas, some donuts and some other assorted sweets for everyone. When he came back Caitlin and Joe were putting the finishing touches on the tree and around the house.

He flashed out of the suit and came down to look at the tree that the two managed to finish decorating, while he was gone. Looking at Caitlin with Joe it was like he saw Iris, the two laughed said jokes and talked about everything imaginable. It was like Caitlin in some way became his adoptive daughter too and then smirking to himself and soon his daughter in law. Barry kept his thoughts barred as he was thinking about this. The reason was obvious. He didn't want the surprise spoiled, not this time.

The speedsters finished cleaning and arranging everything with Joe's help just in time for the first guests to arrive. Eddie and Iris knocked at the door and were not really surprised when a quite homely dressed Caitlin, track pants and a large shirt with her hair tied into a bun, opened the door and invited them inside. They were dressed for a party, she was wearing a red dress with black heels and Eddie was dawning a two piece black suit.

 **"Hey, Caitlin. I see you came over to help just like last year"** Iris smiled. Seeing her at the door.

 **"Hey Iris, Eddie. We thought Joe might need some help putting everything up so we've been here helping for a while. Last year Barry was still here and I was here as well since he asked me to come help. Now, since you two both moved out … he needed the help more than ever. When Barry came by here earlier he didn't even have the tree brought inside the house. That's when we decided to get our asses in gear and come help"** She smiled closing the door behind them. Iris admonished herself mentally for not thinking that her father would need help now that everyone was gone from the house, but calmed down when she saw Barry helping Joe with things and Caitlin working right beside them. It was strange to her, Caitlin had fit right into the family ever since the first time Barry brought her over last Christmas. The way the three were working to get everything ready seemed almost like they had been doing that for at least a couple of years.

The next couple to arrive was Cisco and Bette. They were greeted by Barry who was also dressed like he was home, which didn't surprise the two. They had brought mashed potatoes with gravy and a LOT of pot roast. Barry gave them a weird look taking the large container which weighed at least a couple of kilos and put it in the kitchen.

 **"What? We have two speedsters that eat like they have no end to their stomachs. I thought, and Bette agreed, that we need something more than just the usual thing. But since we know you love the usual thing, we just quadrupled the quantity"** Cisco quipped. Caitlin came to see what the commotion was and saw the giant pot roast that was on the kitchen counter and started to laugh looking at Bette.

 **"Welcome. Thank you for thinking about our stomachs. We sadly almost forgot about them"** she smiled at her and Bette nodded cracking a grin.

The next set of arrivals was a surprise to both Barry, Caitlin and the rest of the gang. At the bell when Barry was fastest and opened the door, three very familiar people were sitting there. Oliver, Felicity and Thea, travelled all the way from Star City to join the fun.

 **"Oh my god, Ollie. Welcome, Come in. How … did you think to come here?"** Barry looked at the people that were coming in.

 **"Merry Christmas, Barry"** Felicity dawned a large container with food that Caitlin looked strangely at **"Don't worry, Oliver made it. I suck at cooking, I wouldn't want you spending Christmas in the ER"** she smiled.

 **"I invited them"** They could hear Joe's voice from the other room. **"Cisco told me how much help they were and how much they mean to you two. So I thought they are like family anyway"** Barry immediately thought about Joe knowing about the surprise.

 ** _"Cait, tell Joe thank you for me. I had no idea that he invited Oliver. This was a very welcomed surprise"_** He told her in his head

 ** _"Already did. I'm happy that they`re here"_** she responded back

 **"I'm guessing this is a surprise to you as much as it was to us?"** Oliver smiled entering the house with Thea and Felicity in tow.

 **"You can say that. We did plan to come visit after Christmas and see you guys but now I don't think we need to. Welcome back to Central City"** Caitlin smiled brightly at them taking Oliver into a hug as well as Thea and Felicity.

 **"Hey Joe, any more surprises you got planned for us or just the usual people?"** Barry asked his foster father

 **"Well, there is one more surprise"** Joe looked at his phone and went to the door to open it **"Welcome, Henry. I thought you would want to spend time with your son"** He spoke to the man that came into the light

 **"No, Joe. I would want to spend time with my family. All of it"** then with a whisper toward him so that nobody could hear **"Besides I want to see how corny the proposal actually is"** Henry Allen came into the room prompting Barry to go and give him a hug **"Hey, slugger"** he replied holding his son tight. The next to give him a hug was Caitlin who knew how much Henry meant to Barry **"Hey, Caitlin. It's nice to see you again"**

 **"Nice to see you, Dr. Allen"** she replied

 **"How many times have I told you to call me Henry"** He laughed **"Or maybe dad"** her eyes went wide and she started to blush **"What? Still too soon? God damn it, Barry, how can you have super speed and be so slow sometimes"** he said prompting the speedsters to start laughing.

 **"Dr. Stein and Clarissa couldn't make it. They aren't in town. Harry used the speed cannon to go back to earth 2 to see if he could get more information about Zoom's whereabouts and maybe find his hideout while at it. He took what Caitlin told him pretty seriously"** Barry cleared up the rest for everyone

 **"What about that guy, Jay?"** Joe asked.

 **"Oh you mean the guy that tried to flirt with my girlfriend in front of me? Sorry I would like not to punch anyone this Christmas if possible"** Barry said with seriousness on his face. Caitlin thought that he was cute. He was actually jealous even for something so small as a flirt. Of course he didn't have to worry because she did have eyes only for him, but she still thought it cute. Joe dragged Barry aside

 **"The papers you wanted me to get are in the kitchen in the spice cupboard. I nearly had time to go get them. I had no idea Caitlin would want to come keep me company. Now I'm glad that I did do so immediately after you left. I'm also glad that she has no problem calling this her home as well or else she wouldn't have wanted to come keep an old detective company. You got a great girl there, Barry. I'm glad you finally see it too"**

 **"Thank you and you`re wrong, she's not just great. She's amazing"** Barry went into the kitchen and signed the papers putting them into an envelope with a Christmas pattern on it, he then quickly flashed over to their home and picked up another envelope with something that contained a present for Oliver and Thea leaving the two envelopes in the same place and returned to the living area.

 **"Everyone is here. You two should go change"** Joe told them, so they did just that. The moment they came down the stairs, everyone's eyes were stuck on them. The stares that they received were obvious. The dress and the suit they had chosen went with each other like part of a set, but that wasn't the main attraction. The large necklace, the cufflinks and the tie tack was what attracted the most attention.

 **"That is … beautiful"** Iris managed to speak after a bit of shock while Barry got himself and his beautiful girlfriend a glass of wine and in the slowed time scape that his speed gave him put two bottles of wine and glasses on the empty table. **"Where did you get it?"** she asked

 **"Barry gave it to you didn't he?"** Felicity asked bluntly

 **"Yep. It was a surprise for me too. I especially love the design of the symbols on it"** she pointed to them as Bette and Iris dragged her away to another corner of the room. While the gifts were already under the tree she noticed Joe putting something there out of the corner of her eye.

 **"The design is intricate yet strangely beautiful"** Iris commented **"Who came up with it? You can see from afar that it's not a standard design you would find anywhere"**

 **"It's Barry's design. He ordered the pendant and everything that came with it"** Caitlin replied

 **"You do realize that the design is a combination of your shields, right?"** Felicity observed **"Maybe, you know, Barry's giving you a hint? Not a very subtle one at that, unless you would happen to be … I don't know… exceedingly dense"** The women smiled at her blunt reply, while the epiphany dawned on Caitlin's face. She knew what the symbols were, just not what they could actually mean and what Barry was trying to convey through them. While they were talking, on the other side of the room Oliver and Barry were chatting as well.

 **"So what's new with you?"** Barry asked nonchalantly

 **"Nothing. I'm running for Mayor of Star City. I thought maybe the Green Arrow can do just so much good from the shadows"** Oliver added.

 **"Good luck on that, Ollie and if you need support, you know we can help. Besides, it wouldn't hurt the Mayor having your back in a city like Star"** Barry laughed looking across the room at the women that were still awed at the beauty of Catlin's necklace.

 **"Barry, you sure know how to woo a woman of her feet"** Oliver smirked **"Of course, having money helps as well, but I saw the design. That was something you came up with didn't you?"** the archer inquired

 **"Yes, I did. Money does indeed help, but to be fair, even if I was flat broke I'd still find a way to buy her something like that. She deserves it"** Barry commented.

 **"I know she does"** Oliver nodded. **"Ice throwing super speeding superhero girlfriend? You have hit the jackpot, my friend"** Felicity heard the comment, approached and elbowed him gently

 **"What's wrong with a normal super intelligent hacker girlfriend, Oliver?"** she quipped

 **"Nothing. But like Caitlin is a perfect match for Barry you're a perfect match for me. The non-powered, ultimately normal Green Arrow"** he laughed pulling her closer.

 **"No offense, Ollie. You? Normal? That's like saying alien abductions are as normal as taking the bus to work"** Barry concluded making Felicity laugh and Oliver to give him his usual death stare which soon broke into a chuckle.

 **"Why are you so nervous, Barry?"** the archer asked detecting the fidgeting and the apparent stress the speedster was in.

 **"Uh... yeah ... how can I say this?"** and he trailed off instinctively putting his left hand over his ring finger.

 **"Oh. My God. You want to ask her the question"** Felicity said as quietly as she could without the others hearing seeing Barry nod **"When? Tonight?"** he nodded again **"It's going to be a corny proposal, isn't it?"** and the furious nod that he gave out made both her and Oliver laugh.

 **"Don't worry, Barry. It doesn't take a genius to see that she's crazy about you. She will definitely say yes"** Oliver whispered patting the nervous speedster on the back as they joined the people that were already talking amongst themselves. Oliver could be broody, kind of a jerk and a real pain in the ass at times, but this time the words that were offered made Barry feel a little bit better.

When the time of the present exchange came and everyone had opened their presents and were reveling in how the two speedsters managed to get them _"almost"_ what they wanted. Felicity, Oliver and Thea not being left out because the booze was enough for everyone, but that didn't matter because Barry had already taken care of their gifts, a single lonely box was under the tree seemingly unclaimed by anyone. Barry and Caitlin shared their problems about finding each other a gift so she thought they would just be each other's gift instead which made her even more curious when she approached the tree and saw that the lonely box was addressed to her _"To my Caitlin Snow, the one that managed to get me out of my own personal Frost"_ She smiled, the corny message could only mean that it was from Barry, besides nobody else would write the message to _his_ Caitlin Snow except him. She then remembered that it was the same box Joe put down earlier. She sat down on a chair and opened it starting to read the note inside

 **"I'm going to start this by saying that I suck big time at making speeches, but you already knew that. I am sorry in advance since I suspect this is pretty corny, that's why this note is addressed only to you, my dear beloved Caitlin. You see, ever since we woke up and more often the past few months, ever since you went completely bonkers on me in the bar with the Killer Flash,"** she started to blush remembering how hammered she was that night, but all in all she loved hearing Barry sing the song that was the first thing she listened to the day she came out of her coma **"I found out what it's like to have someone by your side every waking second of your day and night, in your dreams and in your head. The beauty of coming home to someone you love, sharing a bed with the woman that even with the worst bed hair still looks like an angel in the morning sun and like a goddess in the light of the moon"** Caitlin now started to blush furiously at the blatant compliments that were written down as a testament to how much Barry loved her **"You showed me that I could be loved by someone as much as I love them, not sitting in the shadows longing and needing, but never receiving. You have become the new guiding light in the dark times that we have been subjected to ever since the day of the lightning. Times when I thought I would lose myself in pain and anguish, violence or despair, but most of all the one thing I have never wanted to do : killing. You were always there to provide the light that kept me from becoming that person"** She immediately thought about how much suffering fawning over Iris had brought him over the years and about his steel conviction to kill anyone that would ever try to harm her **.**

 **"Simple things like cleaning the apartment, or cooking, or just going to the store to grab something at normal speed became the highlight of my days when I was down and not a chore"** She remembered about the day they cleaned the apartment at normal speed and how fun it was, even though it took them way too long **"I love being with you, I love knowing you are around for me and with me whenever. Your presence makes me stronger and happier. The fact that you are with me out there when we save the city gives me conviction and strength of will. Something that I only had about getting my dad out of prison, I never thought I could have that sort of passion about anything else that getting doing that precise thing. I was wrong. I met you and my opinion of myself changed with the beautiful person that had sneaked her way into my life, into my mind and into my heart. Right now I wouldn't change what has happened to you and I for the world and I wouldn't have it any other way. I found someone that has had hardship in her life and it has made her stronger, the same way my life has made me. A person that I can be strong with, but also weak"** She knew where this was going. She didn't manage to read everything, but her heart told her and her eyes started to water. She was so out of it that she didn't even see all the eyes in the room literally glued to her. Most of the people had no idea what was happening. The only persons that knew already, Oliver, Felicity, Joe and Henry had a grin on their faces. Barry's face on the other hand was totally blank. She continued to read.

 **"I can say with all my heart that I love you. I love you when you bite your lower lip when you`re bothered by something. The cute crease you get between your eyebrows when you`re sad. The sexy demanding voice when you`re angry at me because I screwed up and got hurt. The way you could make a pencil skirt look hot even if it's full sized and to the ground. The way your eyes smile at me when you`re happy. Your soft lips that bring up a fire in me whenever we kiss. The longing beautiful soft touches that you like to give me when nobody is looking, oh and let's not forget the usual irony that Frost, whilst being the Ice Maiden of Central City, looks hotter than sin in her suit.**

 **I love your mind, the way you come up with seemingly doable solutions to impossible problems, I love the discussions we have and the fact that we could do almost anything as long as we set our mind to it. I love the way you complete my sentences and know what I'm going to say even if you don't read my thoughts, you always seem to manage to read my mind. I love the care you have for my health and I hope you know I have that same care for you. I love everything about you, Cait. That is why I want you with me for as long as I live and I never ever want to lose what we have.**

 **I know we agreed not to give each other presents for Christmas, but this is more than a present. It is my promise to you that I will love you and I will be by your side for as long as I live. This will of course sound corny as hell, but all I want for Christmas, or for any other day of the year for that matter, is you, by my side, for the rest of my life. I suspect you already know by now from this note what the box in front of you contains. Open it and if you can, turn this note around and answer that "simple" question that is written on the back. The ring was my mother's and it will now be yours if you so desire. I will be waiting for your answer whichever it might be. I love you, your Barry"**

She opened the box with tears running down her face and saw a beautiful diamond ring. Turning the note she saw an intricately hand drawn design of the same symbol she was wearing on her necklace. The flash symbol encased in an amazingly detailed blue snowflake had a space in the middle with six words written on it _"Caitlin Snow, will you marry me?"_ She looked at the paper then at the ring, then at Barry who had conveniently sat down right in front of her waiting for an answer just like the note said. She then realized something remembering the words from that morning that seemed weird to her at the time **" _Then I will make it my standing mission that Christmas from now on is a holiday you enjoy and love"_** Now they made perfect sense.

 **"Yes! Yes. Yes. Yes."** she made sure to tell him more than once before jumping up and giving him a longing passionate kiss, still crying. The surprise in the room was magnified by the fact that the people that knew what was going on never said a word. So her starting to cry and suddenly shouting at Barry and kissing him came as a total shocker. That only lasted until Thea saw what she had left behind on the table and pointed to it, the shock started to disappear from their faces. **"Yes, Barry Allen. I will marry you"** she finally said kissing him again and erasing any sign of doubt from the minds of the onlookers, which started to cheer and clap their hands.

 **"Told you"** a grinning Oliver commented from the back of the room while Barry gently put the ring on his now fiancée's ring finger **"There was nothing to worry about"** the archer continued as everyone clapped.

 **"About damn time!"** Cisco and Bette added **"You two have been practically married for a few months now"**

 **"Congratulations"** the group managed to utter after recovering from the shock. You could see on all their faces that they were happy for the couple that was now going to tie the knot, for the rest of their lives.

 **"Well now I'm pretty damn sure it's not too soon for you to call me dad"** Henry quipped from the back of the couch making everyone laugh remembering earlier. **"Congratulations to you both. I'm glad I was here. Thank you, Joe for telling me to come over so I could be a part of this"** he looked at the old detective who nodded.

 **"I have something else for you"** Barry motioned for Joe to get the envelopes from the kitchen. The old detective did so and gave the speedster both of them **"I know we decided not to get each other anything for this Christmas, but … I thought this surprise will complete the … interesting evening that I put you through"** he gave her the one of the envelopes. She opened it and her jaw fell, her face frozen in disbelief.

 **"What is that?"** Thea asked wanting to know the rest of it

 **"Legal papers. Making Caitlin Allen, the aforementioned crying beauty that I'm holding in my arms right now and whose angelic face is frozen at the moment, at the time of our marriage, co-owner of everything that I have. Including STAR Labs and all the related endeavors"** Barry smiled toward his fiancée and pulled out another envelope motioning for Oliver to come closer.

 **"What if I want to hyphenate?"** she asked managing to smile through her tears

 **"I would need to change those papers and you know how I feel about red tape"** he rolled his eyes in jest but she could see the happiness that now resided in them **"I'm not going to run into another black hole that you create by changing the future"** He laughed prompting weird looks from everyone except Cisco and Bette who started laughing hard.

 **"Yes, you will. If it means running in with me"** she answered.

 **"Yes, I will. As long as it means running in with you"** he acknowledged as he kissed her beautiful lips holding her hand in his.

 **"Barry and Caitlin Allen, owners of STAR Labs. I guess some things are meant to happen no matter how you look at it. Not that you two tried to avoid it or anything anyway"** Cisco spoke making the whole room look at him like they had seen a ghost, or worse. The only person that had a smidge of an idea, Joe, had a large grin on his face.

 **"I'll let Cisco explain that in a bit. But for now, since I didn't have a present for Oliver, I thought this would do. I had this done right after you left from Central City. You know, the Savage incident"** the archer took the other envelope from his hand as the speedster continued **"The Reverse Flash had all the Arrow merchandise patented. Me, I patented Green Arrow and Speedy. I put them under separate companies that own the brand and get the profits from anything they sell with that brand. I thought ... since you aren't a billionaire anymore and you have a sugar momma"** he looked at Felicity smirking while he said that **"You could use some money of your own out of your own logo. It felt a bit weird that I would be getting paid for that. So, I made deeds for the two companies and they are in that envelope. All you have to do is sign the dotted line. You on yours and Thea on hers"** the two Queens were baffled by what Barry had just told them

 **"Barry, are you sure you want to give us these?"** Oliver asked looking over the deed and seeing how much income that company actually brought. **"These seem to produce a lot of cash and have quite a large positive income"**

 **"Yes. It doesn't seem fair that we make money out of anyone else's brand except our own, besides it would be nice if you have your own funds to build your arrows and gear out of instead of using STAR West money, not that we mind anyway"** the speedster stated with a smirk on his face. **"So what do you say? Yay or nay?"**

 **"Out of curiosity, if we sign these will our names be tied to the companies that have those rights? I would rather not, if at all possible"** Oliver asked

 **"I thought you might say something like that. The trademarks and all the rights are still under the STAR umbrella, like those two companies are, which means that whoever searches for information on who is the proprietor, will come back to us. Your names, besides on the companies, will not come into play at any time"** the speedster replied with a smirk.

 **"Thank you for this, Barry"** Oliver said and Felicity could have sworn he saw a tear in his eyes as he signed the papers

 **"This is a hell of a Christmas gift. Thank you so much, Barry"** Thea signed her papers and put them back in the envelope.

 **"What? Don't I get anything?"** Felicity made a joke pouty face at Barry.

 **"Oh you didn't check the last payment roster? I thought you had"** the speedster commented with a large grin on his face, almost daring her to check.

 **"Wait, what? You do realize I was joking with that question, right?"** Felicity took out her tablet and connected to the house network. She put in some numbers and a password and a list of employees was put on the screen. She selected herself and brought up the last paycheck and her face fell. Under her name a new category appeared called Bonuses. It had a number next to it that read 1 million dollars. **"Are you serious? That's what I get when I'm working for family and I don't really care about my own paycheck"** she pulled up the money transfer and saw that it was indeed ordered by the two and it was ordered recently.

 **"What did you get Felicity?"** Joe asked with a surprise on his face.

 **"A bonus on my last paycheck. Consisting of a million dollars"** she said as the jaws of everyone in the room fell.

 **"See? We did get you something. We keep up with the evolution of STAR West and you seem to be doing an amazing job so I thought you might want to use some money to buy yourself something nice. Maybe take your boy toy over there to a trip somewhere. Just NOT on a yacht, or anywhere near the South China Sea. For obvious reasons"** Barry smiled at Felicity and Oliver glared at him and then grinned **" Also for the people that are still employed at STAR Labs, you will find something extra on your pay slips for Christmas, which will hopefully make you understand that whatever you do for us and with us is always appreciated. No matter how small you might think it is"** Barry continued as he motioned for Felicity to give him the tablet. He logged into the STAR Labs server and pulled up the last balance for the labs and within that accessing the last slips of the people that were formally now working for them. Their faces fell, everyone even with or without a full time job at the labs had gotten the same bonus as Felicity did. Iris and Eddie could not believe their eyes, for them life had gotten a bit hard when they started to plan the wedding, but with this they didn't have to worry at least for the near future. Cisco and Bette got the same bonus. Barry had seen them around the lab and in their free time, their relationship had gotten very close, he thought a little gift would help the both of them.

 **"I need some fresh air"** Caitlin managed to speak after calming down.

 **"I'll come with you. Cisco you can tell them all about what we found in the meantime. Just leave out things that have not happened yet. You know why… The first rule of time travel …"** Barry told the engineer

 **"You do not talk about time travel"** Cisco and Bette completed his sentence in one voice. The engineer sat at the table starting his story. The two went outside in the cold Barry was holding Caitlin who had no issue with the weather.

 ** _"This is really happening, isn't it"_** she asked him with still some tears in her eyes.

 ** _"Yes it is. Want me to pinch you so you know it's real and that you aren't dreaming?"_** Barry confirmed it with a kiss.

 ** _"Maybe later, ya pervert. After all the problems I have had in my life I never thought I would have someone like you around, Barry. I have never mentioned this before, but I have always envisioned myself as the old lady scientist with cats that cures cancer. Now ... I don't see anything. The future is clouded and I like that. You know why?"_** she asked looking at the speedster

 ** _"No, Cait. But I think I have an idea"_** He smiled toward his fiancée

 ** _"Because it's no longer MY future. It's our future. It's dark and scary and something that we will face together"_** She told him

 ** _"Barry and Catlin Allen, I told you it had a nice ring to it. Unless you want to hyphenate"_** he chuckled at the time travel joke that somehow never seemed to get old.

 ** _"Shut up, you dork. You know I don't. But that joke never gets old does it. First rule of time travel, you don't talk about time travel. Even Cisco and Bette know that"_** she chuckled and Barry followed.

 ** _"No it doesn't, Cait. No it doesn't"_** he took her in his arms out in the cold and kissed her with a passion that he didn't know he had in him until that moment. She responded with her own longing and need

 ** _"I love you, my Barry Allen"_** she thought to him as they were kissing

 ** _"I love you too, my Caitlin Snow"_** he thought back never wanting to let her go from his embrace.


	34. Opening

Between Christmas and New Years the couple decided that it was time for them to push the opening of STAR Labs to the public. They had already talked to Lyla who had her ARGUS connections within the government to lift the bans that the Labs have received over the last two years since the Particle Accelerator exploded. That took a little work, since most of the government big shots didn't want another media disaster as well as something that changed the face of Central City forever, but being assured that the new management will take care of that, coupled with a few string that Lyla could pull, they caved in. The two speedsters weren't sure what Lyla did, either threaten them or pay them off, but they had released the injunctions that were placed on STAR.

Iris had been working on a presentation speech for Barry and Caitlin and prepared a series of answers to some questions that were surely to be asked at the opening ceremony. They wanted to do this as soon as possible, the exposure would bring them good publicity, hopefully. Again, Iris used her connections to set up the press conference on the 27th of December. The timing was not the most fortuitous since most of the big publications had their top reporters on leave for the holidays, but that had a purpose in itself. The people were gathered in the Cortex to discuss precisely that.

 **"So, why now, Iris? It seems a bit strange that you would choose a time like this"** Barry asked her while he sat down on a couch with Caitlin in his lap.

 **"I did some research on the papers that I invited to cover this event. Most of their top reporters have or have had a beef with Harrison Wells at some point in time. That is not something we want. A few awkwardly phrased questions can totally make a press conference and these guys will probably do everything to do so out of spite. So I decided to do the press conference now because most of them have taken holiday leave"** she explained what she had thought to be the correct course of action to make the press conference succeed.

 **"I see, very sneaky of you, Ms. West"** Barry smiled at his adoptive sister **"So do you think we could pull this off?"**

 **"Yes. We can pull it off and with the sister press conference I had Felicity arrange this afternoon in Star City this will probably be an event with national coverage by then. That is what I'm betting on anyway"** she responded.

 **"Ok, then I guess we should go get ready, we can't really show up dressed like this to a press conference"** Caitlin pointed at the two that were still in house clothes. Nobody cared about what they were wearing while at the labs. This was their family now and they kind of groaned when they realized that they would have to wear work clothes when people started to come in.

 **"Barry, Caitlin. One more thing you should know. I talked to Captain Singh about that secret contract you proposed. He isn't inclined toward it right now, but I suspect it was because the proposal came from me. He asked to talk to you two after the press conference ends. I would assume that he wanted more information on how the actual process is supposed to work, something that I can't give him because I have no idea what you two are trying to do"** Joe told the couple

 **"Then we shall go talk to him"** Barry replied and looked at his phone dialing they blonde hacker friend **"Hey, Felicity. Yeah we're fine. We're going to do that press conference now and then talk to our police captain. After that we'll be on our way to Star City. Can you send the jet after us? Yes, all of us would want to come not just Caitlin and I. Wait, you thought of this ahead didn't you or else the plane wouldn't be already in the air. Cool, thank you very much. Send me the details to where we need to be when it lands here"** He closed the line.

 **"You had her send the jet after us?"** Caitlin said surprised.

 **"Well I would have, except she sent it already. She thought ahead. It should be landing soon. You all want to go don't you?"** Barry asked around and most of the people except Joe and Eddie nodded in agreement.

 **"We need to be at the precinct when you talk to Singh"** Eddie explained

 **"Besides, we still have some paperwork to do"** Joe smiled bitterly as both left for the precinct.

Everyone in the precinct was waiting for the press conference that was scheduled. They had no clue who took over STAR Labs and they wanted to be sure that another issue like the Particle Accelerator explosion would pop up ever again. One of the people that were waiting for the reveal at the conference was a certain Patty Spivot. She already knew what was going to happen, but she didn't know why they would have waited that long to reveal the truth.

Back at STAR, everyone went to change and met up in the large hall that was the entrance of the labs where reporters were already waiting and Bette with the new security force that her and Cisco put together were keeping order. The engineer took the stand to speak first.

 **"Hello everyone. My name is Cisco Ramon. I worked at STAR for many years under the now known criminal who was Harrison Wells. Under the leadership of that man, I was inadvertently part of the Particle Accelerator mess that happened two years ago. I would like to put that behind me like most of us here and now that can become reality under the new management. I would like to introduce the new owners of this establishment, my bosses and my longtime friends, Barry Allen and Caitlin Snow"** he stepped down inviting the couple up to the stand shaking hands with Barry and hugging Caitlin.

 **"As some of you might know, the previous owner of this laboratory was a criminal. Or more to the point, a madman. He killed my mother and placed the blame on my father. I was lucky enough to be taken in by a kind detective who raised me as his own son. A madman because Harrison Wells knew that there was a possibility, quite a large one in fact for the Particle Accelerator to explode when he started it. He told no one, we found this out only a while back. He toyed with my life, he toyed with your lives and the lives of everyone in Central City. When I found out that through his living will he left me the lab and everything tied to it, to be honest I didn't want it. We left it to die, we didn't even come here for quite a while.**

 **It took my friends and my fiancée to show me that STAR has potential. A potential to be a force of good in the world, to help people and not only the people of Central City but this country and even more. This place is not a curse, nor a place of mourning for all the people that we lost in the particle accelerator explosion, but a place of healing and advancement, something that can be put in service to the world and its people and not for one man's desire for power. Enough about that for now. To introduce you to what the new STAR labs has on the agenda, I will hand off this press conference to my co-owner, the new Managing Director of STAR Labs, my fiancée and the love of my life, Dr. Caitlin Snow"** Barry stepped down from the podium as he extended a courteous hand helping Caitlin up.

 **"Now that all the introductions and fancy titles are out of the way I think it's time that we answer some question from you good folks" s** he smiled at the crowd. Almost everyone raised their hand with Caitlin picking one

 **"Dr. Snow, as Mr. Allen stated we all have concerns about the Particle Accelerator. Will it ever be put in function again?"** the person asked.

 **"Yes, it will. We have contracts with CERN and a few other private organizations that require something of that size for their experiments. However I must state this as bluntly as possible. If the experiments have any chance to fail, however remote, then they will not be run in our Accelerator. Central City has suffered enough from one madman's dream, we do not want a repeat of that. We will have enough prestigious scientists that can verify the validity of any experiments that will be done here"** She answered swiftly and with a determined tone in her voice

 **"There have been rumors that STAR Labs is the headquarters of our resident heroes, Flash and Frost. How do you answer to that?"** another reporter asked.

 **"This is a laboratory. It is true that the two heroes have asked for our help and we have helped them and will continue to do so to the best of our power. Keeping this city safe is as much of a priority to us as it is to them. Do not confuse helping them however with the fact that this is their headquarters. It is not"** Caitlin was stern and blunt with her statements. Barry had no idea that the shy doctor could have such demeanor when speaking in public.

 **"There have been rumors circulating that you are helping the CCPD with their meta-human problem. Are they true or are they just speculation?"** one question was heard from the room

 **"If those are only rumors then I will confirm them right now, myself and Mr. Ramon have been helping the police in fashioning some gear that could in theory let any meta with superpowers be judged like a normal human. Other things like suppressor cuffs and the "boot" as Mr. Ramon likes to call it have been manufactured for the CCPD to aid with the capture of rogue metahumans"** She looked at Cisco and the engineer gave her a small bow. **"As the lab becomes fully operational we will offer the same help to the police as we give the Flash and Frost. All they need to do is … well ask"** she chuckled and most of the people in the room smiled.

 **"When are you two getting married?"** a voice came from the back. It was Bette who decided the pitch in for fun.

 **"That is something that has not yet been decided Ms. San Souci. Glad you could pitch in from all the way over there. I could barely hear you. Our resident Security Chief, ladies and gentlemen, always a kidder"** Caitlin laughed at the woman who gave her a grin **"That will be all for now. The new STAR Labs will be fully functional at the end of the month and I hope you all will be happy with the new stuff that we have coming out after that. There are a lot of things coming down the pipeline so if you want to stay updated, I suggest you stay in touch with our Media Liaison and PR Director, Ms. Iris West"** Caitlin motioned toward her and she took a bow to the audience, she took Barry's hand and moved down the podium toward the back as the reporters could be heard talking in the background. The two were happy, the reporters seemed content about their answers. They gathered back in the cortex after all the guests were gone and Bette was satisfied that they didn't have any sort of security breach.

 **"Caitlin and I are going to talk to Singh. You guys should be headed toward the jet. It should have arrived here by now. Take this bag with you, it contains a fresh change of clothes for us in case we manage to miss it. You should make it in time for the press conference, as for us, I think we will manage on foot if necessary"** Barry commented.

 **"Take care you two, see you in a few hours then?"** Iris said

 **"Will do. Cisco, call Felicity and find out where the jet is. Send me a text anyway with the location, but do not delay your departure in case we don't make it"** Caitlin couldn't stress this enough.

 **"Got it, Ms. Managing Director"** the engineer grinned.

 **"Francisco, if you ever call me that again … you know what will happen"** she grinned while creating a large icicle in her hand.

 **"Damn, I can't disintegrate my boss. Bummer"** the engineer smiled at the two friends. Everyone got in their cars as Barry and Caitlin sped toward CCPD. They didn't change so they wore the same fancy clothes as they did for the meet up.

The two walking hand in hand in the precinct was not something that was unusual. Most of the detectives got used to them, but this time it was different. They had formal business clothes and their demeanor was more professional than the usual giddy people that they knew as their CSIs. Also most of them had already watched the press conference that the two had just come from and were now wondering why two people that were loaded chose to work for the CCPD. The only thing that did not surprised everyone was the fact that they were engaged. Somehow the people in the precinct thought that as perfectly normal. The couple greeted everyone and went straight to Singh's office.

 **"Hello, Captain Singh. Joe told us that you wanted a word?"** Caitlin politely spoke.

 **"Snow, Allen"** He greeted **"Close the door please"** Barry did as he asked. **"So, you two were the surprise owners of STAR Labs, huh?"** He smiled

 **"Yes well, you saw the press conference. Now you know"** Barry smiled.

 **"There is something I don't get. Between saving the city, managing the largest think tank this side of the States and working at the CCPD. How do you guys have any time for yourselves?"** he grinned.

 **"Saving the city? What do you mean?"** Caitlin asked bluntly.

 **"Come on, Snow. I figured out who you to are. I didn't get to be captain for nothing you know"** Singh laughed

 **"But how?"** Barry asked with a surprise face.

 **"Well how about let's start with the obvious. Two people get struck by lightning and enter a coma for 9 months. After those same two people wake up, Central City has two new heroes that can move faster than sound and one who can freeze stuff. That in itself is nothing to be suspicious about. But the fact that all of a sudden a doctor from STAR Labs that I did not even know existed, which has more degrees under her belt that half of this precinct combined, starts trailing you at work and seems to be as good of a CSI as you are, that's where things started to stick together. That lightning strike should have meant the end of your life and career and yet you came back healthier and more driven in your work than ever. You started to be less late and in the last few months not late at all thanks to the professional Dr. Snow and our CSI cases have been resolved even faster than before. These days we just leave the evidence in the drawer and most times the next day it's all done no matter how much of it you have. It was like, you know, you have super speed"** he smiled at the two continuing **"So we get two new superheroes, you get a beautiful stupidly smart partner and now I find out that you also own STAR, where the heroes have been sighted a lot the past few months. Furthermore she is not just your partner, but your fiancée. Like I said before, Mr. Allen. I didn't get to be captain because I had a lack of observation skills"** The two speedsters wanted to say something but they got cut off almost immediately **"Don't worry about your secret. I always thought you were a good guy, Allen and now with her around it only proves to show that is true. I like the work you do for the city and in keeping the citizens safe. Nobody else knows but me and if they ever put two and two together, I'll make sure to slap them with an NDA so large they will be spending all their lives in Iron Heights if they break it. But that is not the reason I have called you two here"** Singh concluded.

 **"You want to talk to us about the containment systems and the metas, don't you?"** Barry asked.

 **"Yes. Joe has told me a few things about what you want to do. I would like to hear more and he hasn't been able to give me too much information. Since the idea came from you, I thought you might be able to tell me in detail what your actual plan is"** the captain took a sip of the tea he had on his desk.

 **"This is the short version. We have been able to develop suppressor cuffs that will turn a Meta into a normal human. The problem is not all of them have powers that can be suppressed. Some don't ever react to the cuffs or can simply get out of them"** Caitlin started

 **"While we can give you the means to capture the metas and produce enough cuffs for everyone in the precinct, there is that risk that if you catch someone you won't be able to retain them. In that case, you can subdue them and we have somewhere to hold them"** Barry added.

 **"The ones that react to the cuffs can always be held in Iron Heights. They can stand trial and serve their sentence like normal people. The ones that can't are the issue. Without suppressing their powers and running the risk that they can escape at any time, trial is not something viable for those people. Iron Heights isn't either. So we could offer our services and our own containment system for the more … dangerous metas that can's be contained anywhere else"** Caitlin told the Captain who looked pretty interested in what she was saying.

 **"You are right, we could use a place like that. But we do have a problem. We can't just send people away to prison without any sort of sentence or trial"** Singh told the two.

 **"Sorry captain, but in some extreme cases that is the only thing we can do. People that can literally kill with a thought or transform into poison or mimic anyone they touch are not people that can be put on trial, or rehabilitated. Also there will be people that will be driven insane by their new powers. Sadly, I concur with you, we cannot be judge and jury, but in some cases, the safety of Central City outweighs the way we think justice should be served"** Barry stated visibly not comfortable with admitting that harsh truth.

 **"Captain, we aren't talking here about imprisoning innocent people. Some, if not all, will be eligible for the death penalty due to what they have done. This is the sad yet harsh truth. All we are offering you is a way to keep these people away from the world and keep the general public safe"** Caitlin interjected. The captain stood and considered the proposal. It was visible that the two who had given him this option were not totally ok with it. The thought of holding people without trial and justice was something that weighed heavily on their minds, but they were right. The needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few. Those types of people the couple were talking about had to be secured somewhere and neither the CCPD or Iron Heights that the facilities necessary to do that.

 **"Then you have yourself a deal. We will keep the most dangerous people in your containment system. Is there any possibility that you might help us with cells for metas if we get the go ahead to build a new wing on Iron Heights?"** the captain asked.

 **"As we said in the press conference captain. If you need any help with technology related things from STAR all you have to do is … ask"** Barry smiled at him.

 **"I suppose you will be leaving me without my two best CSI's then as well as one of my top bomb defusal techs?"** he said rather saddened by the fact, something that completely surprised the two speedsters.

 **"Absolutely not. We can get a contract going between the CCPD and the labs which will allow us to process the evidence we collect at STAR as well as here. While we might be busy with … stuff and the labs, I know for a fact that Barry doesn't want to stop being a CSI and I will always be helping him"** Caitlin stated rather bluntly with a smile on her face.

 **"Bette has a part time contract with STAR and can hold her job at the CCPD due to an understanding with her very own Executive director. So you will not be losing anything"** Barry smiled.

 **"One last question you two… why? You are now two of the richest people in the city. You could literally do nothing and earn money and travel the world. Why do you still want to work here?"** Singh asked surprised.

 **"That's simple captain. I became a CSI to get my father out of prison. But you already knew that. Somewhere along the way I found out that getting justice and putting criminals behind bars was something that I enjoyed far more and I didn't actually need a reason for it. I am very good at what I do and I love my job. The labs are in capable hands and we still do our … extracurricular activities"** Barry started

 **"If you didn't know, we reopened STAR Labs for the same purpose. To help people. The research being done there could help millions in the long run. You could say that we're in the business of helping people. That is what Barry wants to do and has instilled me with the same desire. That is why, even if we could sit on our asses doing nothing all day, we still want to work here with the police in catching criminals. Does that answer your question?"** Caitlin finished.

 **"Yes. It does. I assume you won't rip us off with the charges to hold those metas then?"** Singh grinned

 **"Not at all. We will be charging you with just the power consumption for the cells and the food of the prisoners. Nothing more, nothing less. You could say we are a non-profit organization in that regard"** Caitlin smiled.

 **"I am surprised at you two. What are you trying to do? Change the world for the better?"** Singh left out a laugh.

 **"Yes, Captain. That is precisely what we're trying to do"** the speedsters answered making him put on a surprised face. They were being serious and he could see it on their faces.

 **"I will have the meta human force that I had made confer with you two and request help whenever needed. I suspect that Joe and Eddie…"** he didn't manage to finish his sentence.

 **"Joe and Eddie already know who we are and what we do. If you need our help with something that you know your men cannot handle, have them call us in. We will usually be there … in a flash. Might be a bit longer if we're out of town. Now that we bought Palmer Tech in Star City we have to be there as well at least for a few days a month"** Caitlin responded.

 **"What? You bought Palmer tech? That's a multimillion dollar corporation. Just how rich are you two?"** Singh's face fell in disbelief.

 **"Enough that we could buy 5 Palmer techs and not run out of money"** Barry smiled warmly at the man whose face froze at hearing the answer. As he calmed down he responded.

 **"I'm glad that you two are keeping a watch on this city. Being in tight costumes or not. Thank you"** the two could see sincerity and relief in his eyes. He finally realized that Central City had not two, but four protectors. Flash and Frost, but also Caitlin Snow and Barry Allen, owners of STAR Labs and part time mild mannered CSI's.

 **"Shit"** Barry looked at his watch **"Cait, we missed the private jet Felicity sent for us. We'll have to leg it if we want to get to the Star press conference"**

 **"You guys have a private jet?"** they nodded **"rich people…"** he rolled his eyes

 **"Captain, mind if we use your window? We kind of need to hurry and we wouldn't want to … you know ruffle half the papers in the precinct by speeding out the front door " Barry asked**

 **"I'm going to start buying paperweights. For obvious reasons, but for now use what you need. Go out there and make the world a better place. Take care"** he smiled. The two speedsters nodded and jumped out the window going down the side. The captain looked at them as the two trails of lightning reached the ground, made a 180 turn and headed toward Star City. **"Be safe"** he added closing the window so that the cold didn't get too far in his office. He called in Joe and Eddie and closed the door behind them

 **"As of now you two have the permission to call them if needed. I already know who they are and if you feel the situation is too much for our people to handle, you know what to do"** He told the two

 **"You figured it out on your own sir?"** Joe smiled looking at the man in front of him

 **"Of course I did. Also your bad excuses and cover ups didn't really help either. I will keep the secret of course and whoever manages to find out from the precinct I will have them brought to me to sign an NDA"** Singh started to laugh **"One more thing. They told me that they will keep working for us as CSI's. But since I know they have extracurricular activities, I would like you to take care of their reports as well as yours, so they sync up and we don't have any problems. I know how busy those two must be and I would like to at least keep them out of having to write the paperwork for everything they do"**

 **"Of course, Captain. Anything we can do to help"** Eddie responded even though he didn't like paperwork and the captain knew that, he thought about the two speedsters and the amount of work they had to do juggling 3 things at once, so he smiled to himself and thought this is the least he could to.

 **"I've already been doing some of Barry's reports. But you knew that, didn't you sir?"** Joe smiled and the captain nodded.

 **"Good, that's settled. I know detective Spivot doesn't know who those two are, so for now I'm sorry to say that their reports fall squarely on you. If she will find out in the near future, let me know and she can join the "paperwork brigade" in helping you two"** Singh smiled **"I believe them"** he continued **"They said they wanted to change the world and I think they can. I suspect you think they can and they will as well"** he told the two detectives.

 **"They have already changed the world for many of us, Captain"** Eddie smiled remembering how Barry saved his relationship with Iris

 **"They did indeed. And they will continue to do so with the help of the labs"** Joe smiled

 **Star City – STAR West building**

Felicity was starting to get worried. There was only about 30 minutes left to the beginning of the press conference and the two owners had not been seen yet. She had left her office window open for easy access as she already knew the two could run up buildings. Her worry was unfounded as a few seconds later a gust of wind announced their arrival.

 **"Hey, Felicity"** Barry greeted the blonde woman

 **"Hello you two. I thought you were going to be late at your own press conference. The others got here hours ago. What took you so long?"** she asked.

 **"We had a long discussion with captain Singh down at the CCPD. Did the others bring the bag we asked them to take?"** Caitlin asked looking around.

 **"Yes, it's in the other office. It has no windows, no transparent doors and no surveillance equipment so nobody should see you change. Besides this floor is limited to high level staff which is code for me, Oliver, Thea, Diggle, Roy, Ray, Bette and Cisco, Iris and Laurel. You know, the people that actually know who you are. So you won't have a problem with getting caught changing. The office at the end will have a sensor on the window which I will have Cisco put commands in your bracers so you can open the window from outside and come in whenever you want to drop by"** the blonde woman smiled at the speedsters.

 **"Where are the others?"** Barry asked.

 **"They are in the conference room on this floor waiting for you. It's the first room near the elevators on the right. Meet us there when you changed"** She said as she left, Barry and Caitlin went into the other room and they were surprised that it also held a shower and some other things. It looked like a home away from home. They got rid of their suits putting them in the bag, they took a shower together which took a bit longer than normal because the two couldn't keep their hands off each other, got dressed and went to the conference room where everyone was waiting for them.

 **"Hey. Sorry we`re late. Singh accepted our offer to hold the extra dangerous metahumans in the pipeline"** Barry told the others.

 **"What kept you, you were here 20 minutes ago?"** Cisco smiled at the two.

 **"You took a shower together, didn't you?"** Felicity grinned as the two were blushing furiously **"That room was designed more like a live in work area so ... it has everything a hotel room would. Which is precisely why it doesn't have windows to the outside"**

 **"Well, they did run all the way over here. Appearing sweaty on television is not something that two rich people should do"** Bette started to laugh making our speedsters turn even redder.

 **"We should go. The conference is about to start"** Iris reminded them. They all took the elevator down to ground level in the big hall that was the first two floors of the building. Employees were on level one and could see them from above while the reporters were in front of them. Everyone stepped on the podium and Barry started to speak.

 **"Hello everyone. My name is Barry Allen, this is my fiancée, Caitlin Snow. We are the new owners of Palmer Tech. As you might or might not have known the company was put up for sale because it was on the verge of bankruptcy. We bought it and we have called you all here to announce a change of brand. Since we already own STAR Labs in Central City, which had an opening press conference a few hours ago, We thought it fitting to rename Palmer Tech to STAR West"** he continued letting the reporters take it all in **"The company will continue Ray Palmer's legacy and will start research on a few new interesting things that will come from the Central City branch"**

 **"Mr. Allen, we all know here what happened in Central City with the Accelerator, should we worry?"** a reporter asked off the top of his head.

 **"Not in the slightest. It's not like this building has one of those in the basement. What happened in Central City was the result of one madman's quest for power"** Barry replied and his phone suddenly chimed. He quickly read the message and continued **"I will leave my beautiful fiancée to answer more of your questions, sadly I have been called elsewhere"** He took his leave and went up to the executive level. It took another 30 minutes for the press conference to come to an end at which point everyone was back up and the reporters were out of the building. Barry had been discussing with Captain Singh.

 **"Hey, you know it's not nice to leave me to the sharks"** Caitlin pouted at him.

 **"Sorry, Singh wanted to talk to me about the terms of our deal with the CCPD. I couldn't tell him to take a breather while I answered questions. Besides seems that the shy Dr. Snow is quite a public speaker. You did great on both conferences while taking questions"** Barry smiled toward his fiancée

 **"I see. So what did you two come up with?"** She asked.

 **"Here. This is what we discussed."** Barry handed her a paper while turning to Iris **"So? Do you still think we could pull this off?"** he inquired

 **"I'm sure of it. I will keep an eye on media coverage and everything related to the press conferences today. But I think a new STAR is born. The people might once again learn to trust the Labs after the debacle that was the particle accelerator"** she smiled.

 **"Good. That's what I wanted to hear. So what do you guys want to do? Hang around here for a few more days or go home?"** Barry asked

 **"Well we would like to be home with our families on New Year's Eve"** Iris replied and most of the people there nodded.

 **"All right. Take the STAR jet and go back to Central City. We will be coming as well, but on foot. We need to get something to eat to replenish our reserves and we'll be heading back too"** Caitlin offered.

 **"Oh. So soon?"** Felicity sounded a bit sad

 **"Don't worry, Felicity you know you'll be seeing more of us in the months to come. We can't just let our most expensive investment yet unsupervised"** Barry grinned

 **"Sure we can. We got her to look out for it. But we will be coming over more to see our friends in Star City"** Caitlin smiled.

 **"Jet is refueled and on the tarmac. Its waiting for you guys"** Felicity added looking at her phone.

 **"Take care, everyone. We'll meet back in town. Felicity can you arrange for transportation back to their homes when the jet arrives?"** Caitlin inquired

 **"Already did that Caitlin, they will arrive quite late"** Felicity responded.

 **"Thank you."** the reply came as everyone except her left.

 **"Good job on everything Felicity. You told us that you might not have time to handle the management. If you can't tell us. It's not like it's a problem"** Barry told his blonde friend

 **"No, I can do both. I can help Oliver from here. My office already has computers tied into the Arrow cave and everything that I need. Besides, when I had to work for those weasels, I had no interest in the company at all. That has changed. You guys own it now and I know you`re trying to do good, for both our cities not as the Flash or Frost, but as plain old Barry Allen and Caitlin Snow. I want to help you do that. That's why my interest has changed completely. I will be here running STAR West for as long as you need me"** Felicity said with conviction in her eyes. She started to love her job after the two came on the scene.

 **"Good, glad that's settled. We will still need you to drop by STAR Labs in a month or so to take care of our computer systems. But now with the jet at your disposal, you can do that whenever you feel you have time or Green Arrow has some time off"** Caitlin smiled. **"Think we should buy another jet for the labs?"** she asked Barry

 **"Well, it would make sense, I mean why use this jet to make 4 trips if we need to come here when we can have our own and make just two"** the speedster grinned.

 **"Wait, are you telling me I can use the jet whenever I want?"** Felicity said a bit shocked.

 **"Of course. Just try not to drain the entire monthly budget on weekly trips to Baja"** Caitlin started to laugh. Felicity began to laugh as well.

 **"There is something I have to say before I go. Ray left this company to me to take care of and I didn't do it right. It was bought from under me and I almost failed. Thank you for letting me keep my promise"** she told them **"I will make damn sure that nobody does that ever again"**

 **"You are welcome. Take care of yourself, Felicity and remember our door is always open"** Caitlin told her

 **"Good night you two. Have a safe trip back. I have to be a meetup for Ollie's mayoral campaign in the park so ... I'll be seeing you"** She told the speedsters as she left the room getting on the elevator to go home.

 **"I'll be right back"** Barry told his fiancée as he sped out the window and came back a few seconds later with a few orders of Big Belly burgers. **"Hungry?"** he asked.

 **"Famished"** She replied digging into the food that Barry had brought.

 ** _"We did this as well. Now I hope it doesn't come back to bite us in the ass"_** Barry thought to her as they were eating.

 ** _"I don't think it will. And even if the opinion of the public is bad, in the end it's not the words that matter. It's the actions. They will see that STAR means what it says when we actually start to help people. Actions speak louder than words"_** she responded.

 ** _"You`re right, Cait. What I told Singh by the way. I meant it. I do want to change the world and maybe with the Labs we can do that. A little bit at a time"_** he replied

 ** _"I was telling the truth when I spoke to Singh as well. Before I met you I didn't really care about how well the world worked. I wanted to do my research to do good, but the fact that I could change the world, that didn't really phase me as a goal. You were the one who gave me that bug and I cannot thank you enough for it. I love you, my Barry Allen"_** she thought to him

 ** _"I love you too, my beautiful Caitlin Snow"_** he told her as they went through their food. After a few minutes they were done, even with the immense quantity that Barry had brought in They both went to the room where they changed and Barry realized that Caitlin was not changing at her usual super speed. Remaining in her red underwear and the pair of black heels she was wearing she turned to him.

 ** _"Hungry?"_** she threw him a sexy smile sitting on the bed.

 ** _"Famished"_** he replied with a smirk coming over to her and kissing her passionately.


	35. Shooting

Disclaimer : I do not own anything except maybe parts of the story. All rights go to those who do :)

Enjoy

* * *

Barry and Caitlin didn't manage to go back to Central City after that night. They slept in the room that was on the executive level of the now new STAR West. They were happy to find out that the room was sound proofed as well, since there were a few times where the volume of the noises went over any … acceptable limits. The two were awakened in the morning by a phone call. Barry picked up the phone seeing Oliver's number.

 **"Morning, Ollie. What got you up so early?"** Barry asked his friend

 **"I haven't slept at all last night"** the reply came.

 **"I'm guessing you were excited that the meeting Felicity mentioned went well? The one in the park about your bid for the mayor's office?"** the speedster inquired. Next to him his fiancée woke up and pressed the speaker button on his phone so she could hear as well.

 **"The meeting went fine. What happened after did not. There was an attempt on my life. I'm fine, but Felicity …"** his voice trailed off prompting the two speedsters to yell into the phone

 **"What happened to her, Oliver?"**

 **"She got shot. There was a lot of blood and when we got her to the hospital … The bullet hit her spine, Barry. I don't think she will be able to walk ever again, the doctors aren't sure, but we could use a second opinion. I know what you two can do so … maybe you can come give us one?"** Oliver said with a voice that was severely cracked and frustrated.

 **"We'll be right there, we haven't left Star City yet, we decided to spend the night here after the press conference "** Barry and Caitlin sped through their morning routine which this time lasted less than 10 seconds and ran toward the hospital passing through a few clothes stores to buy some normal attire. It would have been a bit unusual for them to show up at the hospital dressed for a gala. They found Oliver with Donna Smoak, Felicity's mother, Thea, Quentin and Laurel Lance there waiting for answers.

 **"What's the news?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"The doctors don't want to tell us anything for certain. So we don't know yet. Could you …"** Oliver responded.

 **"I'll go ask them for the x rays and tests. We can pretty much read them ourselves"** Caitlin said with determination in her eyes and left toward the doctor's room.

 **"What are the owners of STAR West doing here?"** Donna asked pretty surprised **"I didn't know rich people cared this much about their employees. This is pretty irregular"** She knew where Felicity worked and had recognized the couple from the press conference that took place a day earlier.

 **"They aren't here because Felicity is their employee. She was their friend way before they even bought the company that she works at"** Oliver responded to her mother.

 **"We have known her for a long time. Way longer than us being rich. She is a good friend, actually we would come as close as calling her family"** Barry commented leaving Donna with a bit of an open mouth in surprise. She obviously had no idea of the connections her daughter had made in all the time they were apart. While she was pondering, Caitlin came back with the results.

 **"That was fast. How did you even get them?"** a surprised Quentin Lance asked

 **"I told them I'm Felicity's personal physician. Considering Barry and I are both doctors, that's not so hard to believe"** She smiled. Barry took and X ray from his fiancée and cringed. Donna saw the look in his eyes

 **"Barry, what's wrong?"** Thea and Laurel both asked at the same time

 **"Mr. Allen?"** Donna chimed in

 **"Call me Barry. Any family of hers is a friend of ours"** Barry pointed toward the blonde's room **"The doctors are right"** Barry sighed with visible pain in his eyes. Caitlin made a grimace that could only show dissatisfaction.

 **"The damage done to her back is permanent. The bullet managed to tear through the spinal column severing the nerve bundles. If there would have been any chance for her to walk again, it would have needed to be partial"** Caitlin added.

 **"With a total break and full nervous disconnection, the chances of her walking again are nonexistent"** Barry said with his voice almost cracking.

 **"But the doctors told us there might be a chance that she can walk again, after a few surgeries"** Donna said almost crying

 **"I'm sorry, Ms. Smoak. That is not possible. Not by the extent of damage we're seeing here"** Caitlin replied. Barry sat down with her in his lap. She started to sob with her head on his shoulder. Donna looked at the two and saw their faces, blank, pained, angered and frustrated all at once, they looked back at Oliver and saw the same amalgam of expressions.

 **"They really are her friends"** She whispered to Quentin that was sitting next to her. **"Look at them, you can see it on their faces. This news is painful for them as it was for me"**

 **"Oliver, did she have her tablet with her?"** all of a sudden Barry asked.

 **"Yes, it's in the car. Why do you need it?"** the archer asked.

 **"I might have an idea … but I need to confirm something first. Mind getting it for me?"** Barry motioned to Oliver that he would like to move, but he was holding Caitlin. Donna looked at him shocked. One of the STAR West owners was telling a mayoral candidate to get him a tablet. She admonished herself, those titles were for the public. They were close friends, she could see that and her daughter was part of this group.

 **"I'll be right back"** He brought back the tablet and handed it to Barry **"What are you thinking?"**

 **"Give me a minute"** Barry pulled up the list of projects for STAR West and started going through them at a stupid rate of speed, not enough to give away that he was a speedster, but enough to make Donna and Quentin look at him in awe **"There. I thought I saw something here. Cait, take a deep breath and calm down. Time to stop sobbing and to start working. We have something to do"** His fiancée took her head off his shoulder and read what he was pointing at. Her face suddenly changed. She had a large smile on her face just like Barry.

 **"You think this would work?"** she asked.

 **"I would say that doing something is better than doing nothing, even if we just try and it's a failure in the end. We can do the bio engineering part at STAR Labs or even here at West, Cisco can help this Curtis fellow on the engineering part and if we need something else, we can always call professor Stein"** Barry responded.

 **"I think Tina McGee might help as well, if we can't reach Martin. She did tell us that if we need anything we should ask"** Caitlin concluded. Barry took out his phone and phoned Cisco which responded with a sleepy voice

 **"What? Come on you two, don't you rest?"**

 **"Cisco, how fast can you get dressed and get to the airport?"** Barry asked. They put the phone on speaker so Oliver could chime in.

 **"What? We just came back, man. What happened?"** the engineer said with the same sleepy voice.

 **"Felicity's been shot. She has a spinal break. We need you to get your ass over here pronto. We found something that might help, but we need your engineering skills"** Caitlin spoke with a clear voice. There was a few seconds of quiet time and the same voice returned, but fully woken up now, stern and clear in its intent. Something that again, made a big impact on Donna Smoak. She was beginning to see the extent of what this group of friends would do for one of their own.

 **"I can be ready in an hour. Do you need anything else from STAR?"** the voice asked.

 **"Stay on the line. Caitlin is going to call Tina. If she has people available they will join you"** Barry told him as Caitlin pulled out her phone and called the head of Mercury Labs.

 **"Hello, Dr. McGee. It's Caitlin Snow"**

 **"Hello, Caitlin. I saw you reopened STAR Labs, I don't think you`re calling to gloat thought, are you?"** Tina inquired but by her tone it was clear she was joking

 **"No, I need a favor. Can you loan me your top engineer, bio engineer and physicist for a few days?"** Caitlin spoke quite bluntly

 **"It's the holidays most of my people are on leave, including myself I might add. What do you need them for?"** Tina asked

 **"A good friend of ours has been shot. We need to help her and we have the minimum amount of people, but more people work faster"** Barry added.

 **"Hello, Barry. I take it this person is really important to you huh? What happened to her?"** Tina asked.

 **"Yes Tina, you would be right in supposing she is important to us. What happened was that she took a bullet to the spine. Motor functions are nonexistent. We might have a project at STAR West that can help but we need to get the people that have the knowledge to get it rolling"** Caitlin added.

 **"How urgent is this?"** She asked.

 **"Very"** Barry added they heard a ruffle of papers and her talking to some people on the landline. In less than 5 minutes she came back

 **"My best scientists are in Bali. Curse them. Sorry Barry, but I don't have anyone at my disposal that could help. Not right now anyway. Although … the lab is empty until the holidays are over. I'm coming and then we can see what we can get done"** She added.

 **"You would do that for us?"** Caitlin asked pretty surprised.

 **"Do not sound so surprised, I have a bit of an engineer in myself even though I'm a physicist at the core. Besides I wouldn't even be here, if you haven't saved my life earlier this year. Where do I need to go?"** She asked.

 **"Central City Airport. Cisco will be waiting for you to take you to Star City. We dispatched the jet to come get you. I suggest you pack for a few days. We'll take care of the living arrangements for the time you`re here. We'll see you when you arrive"** Caitlin spoke

 **"Thank you, Tina"** Barry added.

 **"I said I would help with whatever I can and I meant it, Barry. See you in a couple of hours"** she hung up the line

 **"Cisco, did you hear all that?"** Barry asked his friend

 **"Yea. I'll meet Dr. McGee at the airport and then well come to you. See you when we get there. Make sure Felicity is all right"** the engineer replied

 **"Cisco, Me and Laurel will be waiting for you when you arrive"** Thea interjected.

 **"Ok. See you in a bit"** Cisco closed the line while Caitlin dialed another number.

 **"This is Caitlin Snow. I need to speak to Curtis Holt"** she told the receptionist. After a few minutes a voice could be heard from the other side of the line.

 **"Dr. Snow, what can I do for you?"** Caitlin put the phone on speaker.

 **"Curtis, Felicity has been shot. We need you to tell us at what point are you with Project A372"** Barry replied instead of his fiancée.

 **"The chip? Most of the theoretical work is done, but we don't have the people yet to make a prototype. The project has been mothballed for being too costly to develop as well"** He responded.

 **"What do you need? " Caitlin asked.**

 **"Two bioengineers at least for the neural interface, another engineer to help me build the thing and a physicist to help me in perfecting the power cell required for the chip to run without needing it to charge every few hours. The power cell I was developing when you took over should last a lifetime"** Curtis told the two.

 **"We got Caitlin and me for bio engineers, Cisco for the other engineer and Tina McGee in the physics department. What else do you need?"** Barry spoke swiftly.

 **"20 million dollars? The fabrication process isn't easy and there are only a few places where we can get some components, not to mention that some of the elements the parts require are very expensive. The others that are simpler in nature we'll have to build at STAR West"** Curtis told them shocked by the eagerness of his two bosses.

 **"Money isn't a problem. We can assign that to the project as soon as we get into the office today. Are you up for some work to help Felicity?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"Yes. She was kind to everyone else and very nice and supportive of my research. I think everyone would actually come to work if it was to help her. If needed I can get all the fabrication department online to help her"** the answer came.

 **"Good. We might need that later. We need to resolve the theoretical issues with the prototype first then send it to fabrication. We need to make sure that the science is sound, compared to robotics or anything else, playing around with someone's spinal column is not something we will have many chances to get wrong. Meet us as STAR West in an hour. The rest of the personnel will come by jet from Central City and will join us later"** Barry told Curtis.

 **"Understood. I'll be there within the hour"** he closed the line. The two speedsters got up and got their clothes in order.

 **"Oliver, we're heading back to STAR West. You stay here and make sure Felicity is fine. Don't tell her anything yet, we don't want to get her hopes up. Tell her we came by and we might be back later"** Barry commented.

 **"Leave word for the doctors when they come back that whatever they want to try with her they will need MY specific approval. Ms. Smoak, in case they offer you therapy options or other things, here's my number, call me and either me or my fiancée will come and take a look at them. We don't want them to poke around and maybe do more harm than good"** Caitlin told Oliver and Felicity's mother. Donna nodded, but she and Quentin were in a state of shock. As they had been ever since the two speedsters started calling around.

 **"Got it. What did you two find out anyway that got you so pumped up?"** Ollie asked

 **"This"** Barry showed him **"It's a project for a chip that Curtis was working on until it got mothballed because the board of directors didn't think it will bring any sort of money and because it was stupidly expensive to get going. Something that would probably cut into their profits. Of course, what would you expect from those greedy bastards"** Oliver took the tablet and when he read it his face started to smile.

 **"Is this real life now? You think you can get this done?"** He asked.

 **"I know we can. Maybe not as fast as we initially thought but … even if her mobility on her own is completely gone. That should help her walk again"** Barry gave Ollie a large smile.

 **"Wait, are you guys going to leave Central City unattended for a few days just to do this for Felicity?"** Oliver looked at them with an extremely surprised face.

 **"It's Felicity, man, come on. Is that even a question? It's nothing you wouldn't do for us if we were in the same situation"** Barry replied getting up and holding Caitlin's hand. The other speedster agreed with him. It wasn't even a question, Ollie could see it in their eyes **"We'll be at the labs. Call us if there's any change in her condition"** the two said goodbye to the rest and left in a hurry toward STAR.

 **"Don't they need a car to get there quick?"** Quentin asked out of politeness.

 **"A car would only slow them down"** Thea started to laugh leaving Quentin baffled. Donna finally managed to get out of the shock of what was happening in front of her and spoke

 **"What just happened?"** She asked.

 **"Those two might have a way to make Felicity walk again"** Thea answered reading over the project file that was on the tablet.

 **"No ... I mean. Two of the richest people in Central City just vacated their posts for however long it takes to develop something to help my daughter. They chartered their own private jet to fly in people they trust and I'm pretty sure I heard something about 20 million dollars development fees for what they want to do?"** Donna was stunned.

 **"Being rich isn't who they are, although in all fairness 20 million dollars is probably chump change to them. Those two right now have a net worth of around 3 billion. Both are doctors as you saw, but that isn't all they are. Beside that some of their more colorful degrees include bio engineering, genetics, hematology and a few other things. Oh and, just to complete everything they both have Crime scene investigator training as well"** Oliver said, visibly proud of his two friends. Quentin's face fell. He had no idea who the two people were, but it was pretty clear Oliver did and hearing it from him just made the whole thing that much more real.

 **"But why do all this. I understand Felicity is pretty important to the firm seeing that she apparently is the VP of their last acquisition. Still the question remains, that is an immense pull of resources just so that my baby girl could have a chance, however slight, at walking again"** Donna couldn't process what the two were trying to do.

 **"Being VP or their employee doesn't even register as a reason, Ms. Smoak. She is their friend. A close friend I might add and they trust her enough to give her STAR West to run. That's why you probably never heard of them before the press conference. Felicity is doing a bang up job for the company so their presence is seldom required"** Laurel added.

 **"Trust them. They will do everything humanly possible to make sure Felicity is all right. Those two have more qualifications than half this hospital combined"** Oliver chuckled exaggerating a bit for comedic effect. Donna still couldn't believe her ears. Two billionaire geniuses left everything and pulled a ton of resources in helping her daughter.

 **"Oliver, find the time and thank them for me please. In case I don't manage to meet them until they have to leave. I now understand that they are just two people wanting to help a friend. I hope they manage, for Felicity's sake"** she asked the archer and he nodded in agreement.

 **"We're going to go to the airport. The jet should be on its way by now and it doesn't take that long for them to get here from Central City"** Thea added **"Let Felicity know we haven't forgotten her, but also don't mention anything about what the guys are doing"** Oliver nodded and the two left, leaving him with Donna and Quentin, the same three that initially came to the hospital to watch over the blonde woman.

Barry and Caitlin reached STAR West in under 5 seconds. They went up the building to the window they left open when they sped out to go to the hospital. Barry went and got food for them, it had been a bit of time since they last ate. They were both worried about Felicity but that didn't mean they should collapse from starvation. After they finished the 10 pizzas that Barry brought they put on normal clothes and lab coats and headed down to the R&D level where Curtis, which had arrived even faster than he initially projected, was waiting for them.

 **"Mr. Allen. Dr. Snow. What do you want me to do?"** Curtis asked.

 **"This is your project. I saw who developed the initial designs so as of this moment we aren't your bosses, we are your colleagues and we are going to work with you. Tell us what you need done"** Barry told the man.

Curtis, Barry and Caitlin got to work. As long as they didn't have their engineers they decided to focus on the neural interface part. The progress they did in just a few hours before the others arrived was quite impressive. Curtis could see the two work in sync and did exactly what they were told and in some cases offered options that were far better than he thought. It was clear they knew what needed to be done, he didn't have to direct them at all and they were probably as good at bioengineering as he was, if not better.

 **"Hello everyone. What needs building?"** Cisco asked coming into the room.

 **"Curtis Holt, this is Cisco Ramon. Executive Director at STAR Labs and our resident whiz engineer. You said you needed something built, he can build it for you"** Caitlin spoke.

 **"And this is Dr. Christina McGee, head of Mercury Labs. She's the brilliant physicist who is going to help you with your power cell issue"** Barry added. Curtis was a bit taken aback by the last introduction. He had heard much about Mercury Labs and Dr. McGee and at this point was wondering if his two bosses couldn't bring anyone they wanted if it meant helping one of their friends. Tina shook Curtis's hand, took her jacket off and grabbed a lab coat.

 **"So what do we have to do?"** she asked, ready to help

 **"Curtis, you and Dr. McGee get the power cell working. Caitlin and I will take care of the bio engineering part. The schematics are pretty solid and we can work by them and improve them if we find new solutions. Cisco, you take the device schematics and see what you need to build the chip as well as the casing and the power cell itself. Do me a favor. Everything you want fabricated, do it yourselves, you are the best at what you do and I know we won't have any accidents. I want the best prototype to go into Felicity, as you might know spine surgery has always been very complicated. If it is done multiple times then it can produce irreparable damage on its own. While I don't think there is something worse than a total spinal break we still have to do this as best as we can"** Barry told them. Inadvertently he started to give orders, but nobody seemed to mind, the assignment of tasks was satisfactory to everyone there so nobody had anything to comment.

 **"Everyone ok with that?"** Caitlin asked for politeness' sake realizing that Barry had started bossing everyone around without even realizing it. They didn't answer, just nodded and went about their respective business. Caitlin started to admire Barry for his take control attitude when it came to a crisis. She could do that as well in a pinch, but she was the one person that the speedster never had to give any sort of task to. She was almost always on the same page as he was.

At the end of that day everyone went home except the two speedsters who decided to cheat and started working at super speed. They managed to improve Curtis's designs quite a bit, making the connection to the chip that came from the neural net they were building wired instead of wireless. They thought that would be good since a wireless signal could be hacked or potentially shut down entirely or jammed which would leave Felicity helpless.

They managed to pinpoint the areas of the brain which was producing impulses which were required to be transmitted toward the spinal column but they soon hit a snag.

 **"Barry, how do we differentiate between the signals that have to go to … the hands and the ones that need to go to her legs?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"Can't we just copy all of them and just send them through? I mean the commands that are redundant should not even be taken into account"** Barry responded.

 **"No, that won't work. If we try to do that then I'm pretty sure we can cause some serious damage. Passing signals that can't be interpreted could lead to muscle atrophy, or even worse, the multitude of signals can confuse the limbs and she might actually have problem controlling other parts of her body as well"** Caitlin saw that the solution for the chip control wasn't as good as they thought initially.

 **"Hey, Cait. What if we scrap the neural net completely? In the end we just need to bypass the broken area right?"** He asked.

 **"Well, essentially ... yeah. What are you thinking?"** she asked seeing the glint he got in his eyes.

 **"Simple. We scrap the network and we just make a bypass. Instead of using one chip we use two. One that will copy the signals that arrive at the broken part of her back and the other one that will relay them over that to the intact part of her lower spine. Like a patch in an electric circuit. That way we don't have to worry about static or weird signals that we might convey from the upper part that is intact and still attached"** Barry looked at his fiancé explaining what he had thought

 **"That actually might be way easier than we initially thought. The neural net and the signal differentiation was the big problem in this design"** Caitlin replied.

 **"I'm not entirely comfortable experimenting on Felicity, you know"** Barry spoke.

 **"Neither am I. It's Curtis's idea, we should confer with him and Cisco and see what we come up with"** Caitlin off came as the voice of reason. Barry agreed so they stopped working and went to bed. The next morning when they woke up they went out and brought coffee and donuts and breakfast assortments for everyone and they went back to the lab, the others finding them there working on their theory. They had kept in touch with Oliver which told them that Felicity hadn't woken up yet.

 **"Don't you two ever sleep?"** Tina asked coming into the lab.

 **"We did sleep, but we also came up with something. Curtis, we thought of another way to do this. Remember the biggest problem this project had?"** Caitlin asked

 **"Yes, the neural net had to differentiate between signals to know what to send to the part of the spine that is detached. Why?"** The scientist asked.

 **"Why don't we just jump that? We thought about using two chips. One to copy the impulses from above the broken area and one to transmit it below. That way the impulses that don't need to be there will be gone before they reach the break point"** Barry showed him the schematics the came up with.

 **"That is … actually possible and since we don't need the neural network processor then the power requirements would be minimal just to compensate for the resistance in the wires that will make the connection. How come I didn't think of that?"** Curtis smiled but was also surprised.

 **"Which could mean we would set up a wireless power transmitted from the power cell and a receiver in the circuit which would keep it running without the need for us to actually put the power cell inside Felicity"** Cisco smiled.

 **"Wireless power is pretty lossy sadly. We would need to have something that transmits the power directly through her skin and as close as possible"** Tina said eating a donut and drinking coffee **"Maybe a belt of some sort would help?"**

 **"We need to put at least a small energy source in her. The belt could be used to charge and keep the signals running, but for example if she wants to take a shower she shouldn't like … fall down instantly"** Caitlin said.

 **"Yes, but the power cell Curtis has showed me is rather large. Putting that under her skin would not be advisable. There is a limit of how big an object can be before the body actually starts to react to it"** Barry interjected, making Tina smile

 **"We can make a smaller version just for input output power? The power receiver will charge the small cell from the large one, but the small one will have enough power to keep Felicity going at least a week. Would a 5 by 5 round cell do the trick?"** Curtis asked the two doctors for a medical opinion

 **"That would be something her body can withstand as a foreign object without a problem"** Caitlin responded.

 **"See? Told you we rock"** Cisco smiled **"I can build that no problem"** Tina was surprised at how much of a tightly knit friendship the three had. They worked very well together and Barry and Caitlin, those two were something that she had no words for. She knew who they were, but seeing the people behind the masks working to save their friend earned them even more respect from the aging physicist.

 **"Let's get to it"** Barry smiled and started to work on the transmission process and everything they needed to convey the signals was what Caitlin was working on.

 **"This could help a lot of people. You weren't kidding when you said you want STAR Labs to be a force for good and help the common people"** Tina smiled.

 **"Sadly we won't be able to help them with just this. First we need to see if it works, then some way to make the fabrication process more refined and less costly. A common person would have no chance of receiving this if it costs 200.000 dollars to make"** Barry replied.

 **"When we perfect that and we get the cost down, we will release it to the public so that everyone can benefit"** Caitlin added. Tina looked at the two. It was obvious they didn't care about the money. Someone who was greedy would simply release the product as a miracle cure and didn't care about how much it costed or if the common folk would have access to it. These two did since it was the first thing that they thought about.

 **"But first let's make it work and then we can talk about fabrication costs hmm?"** Cisco smiled. The scientists worked throughout the day and Cisco managed to build the smaller power cell that they should put inside Felicity. The theory was sound and the cell should be enough for the power requirements of the system they were designing. The materials that were chosen were not the usual steel and magnesium housing, which the larger power cell used. The two bioengineers made it from materials that they knew the human body could accept and not attack them or try to degrade them leading to some sort of heavy metal poisoning later. It was something that was very hard to do, but our two speedsters, with the help of Cisco managed to make happen after a bit of brainstorming and a lot of work.

 **"In the end, can't we just make like ... a charging pad from a normal outlet that she can use to charge the small cell herself?"** Cisco thought with his voice.

 **"The wireless recharger would be compatible with any sort of wireless power it would just recharge the cell at different rates. Why did you think of that Cisco?"** Caitlin asked him a bit surprised

 **"It's pretty simple actually. The larger power cell will probably not run out anytime soon and she could use it anytime that she isn't around an outlet. But for example when she sleeps, if she sleeps on her back the smaller cell can just recharge then. It's … let's say more comfortable. Besides, the inside power cell has to have a wireless power receiver, you don't really want to cut into Felicity's back every time you want to recharge the smaller one. That would not be advisable"** the engineer added.

 **"You`re right. The smaller one has to have the wireless transceiver, so why not actually make it rechargeable from the source. Sure, Cisco. That can work. As long as we have the smaller power cell and the wireless power conduit then we can always find new ways to help Felicity recharge the damn thing. Just make sure it works and we can build her a recharging station later"** Barry told his friend

 **"It's like were talking about Robocop"** Curtis smiled making Cisco hi five him.

The day was coming to an end. So did the next day and the next. In four days they had managed to have an almost workable prototype by working around the clock. Tina managed to solve the large power cell problem, making Curtis start to fanboy about something so simple that he had never thought of it.

Cisco got the chip designs and spent most of the day down in the fabrication room getting done what could be done. Some of the components in the chips would require more time but the science was sound. Now Curtis could simply manage the fabrication process without their help. Barry and Caitlin were putting the finishing touches on the programming that would go inside the chips. They weren't near Felicity's level of IT knowledge but they managed to get around by reading a few hundred books while they were lying in bed. Everyone took off toward their respective places in which they had stayed for the past few days. Barry, Caitlin and Cisco however did not head home. Oliver had told them that the blonde woman had regained consciousness so they went to the hospital to see her.

 **"Hey, you"** Barry greeted **"You have seen better days huh?"** he asked

 **"Hey! What are you guys doing here? I thought you left right after the press conference"** she asked, but you could see she was happy that they came. True to his word Oliver had not told her anything about their involvement, except for the fact they came to visit while she was asleep and that he was keeping them constantly updated on her progress.

 **"We didn't really manage to leave. Besides, even if we did we would still come back to see you. What would we be doing here otherwise? You think we love hospitals so much?"** Cisco replied to the blond woman in the bed who was looking pretty beat up

 **"Thank you. So … you probably saw what happened"** she looked at the three with a sad smile **"You two can probably read an X-ray as well as the people here. What's the verdict, doctors?"**

 **"Yeah. We did. The bullet that they managed to get out had already struck your spinal column. It did some pretty serious damage"** Caitlin sat down

 **"I'm never going to be able to walk again, am I?"** Felicity knew that her friends won't lie to her even if the only thing they had to convey was an ugly truth.

 **"No. Not with that kind of damage. Your spine was completely severed. There would have been a chance if it would have been only partially damaged but … nerves are the only parts of the body that do not reattach when cut"** Barry told her

 **"You will spend a few more days in the hospital. Spinal trauma leads to other problems which the doctors need to monitor. Specifically breathing problems"** Caitlin added. **"We already had to deal with this when Zoom broke Barry's back"** they could see the despair on her face.

 **"Thank you for being honest with me. The doctors that I have talked to told me that I might have a chance with therapy and a few more surgeries, but somehow I knew that was not the case"** Felicity gave them a weak smile.

 **"It's fine, I'm going to take care of you"** Oliver told her, they did not have time to tell him the progress of what they were working on

 **"Ugh. Getting a wedding dress for someone in a wheelchair will be a real pain in the ass"** Felicity tried to lighten the mood in the room making Cisco, Barry and Caitlin make really big eyes at her statement.

 **"Say what now?"** Cisco managed to blurt out

 **"Oh. I kind of proposed that night at the meetup and she kind of accepted"** Oliver managed to tell the people that were still oblivious to what had happened.

 **"Congratulations, except we don't see the ring anywhere"** Caitlin commented.

 **"It's here, just not on her hand"** Ollie pulled a small box from his coat. Caitlin looked at Barry

 ** _"Should we tell her? She looks pretty depressed right now. Ignore the smile on her face, her eyes are saying droves"_**

 ** _"I really don't know. This type of thing has never been attempted. What if it doesn't work? Aren't we just going to give her false hope?"_** the speedster replied mentally

 ** _"Some hope is better than no hope. Look at how down in the dumps she is right now. Maybe even a little push will get her spirits up. I say we tell her even if we have to stay here until we finish the prototype. I have been keeping up with news from Central City. It seems that the bad guys took a break so it would be better for us to do this now rather than later"_** Caitlin retorted looking back at him

 ** _"We won't have to. Everything else except the fabrication is done and Curtis can easily take care of that. Felicity was right, that is one smart man. Glad she didn't fire him when those idiots told her to. Without him I doubt we could have gotten this done as fast as we did"_** Barry smiled at her. Oliver, Felicity and Cisco knew what was happening. The two were extremely quiet and looked at each other like they were talking with their eyes and their expression changed from time to time.

 **"Hey, you two need to stop doing that"** Felicity actually smiled seeing them

 **"Yeah, that whole mental communication this is pretty creepy. Also really rude"** Cisco quipped.

 **"Sorry, we were debating if we should tell you something or not and we reached an agreement. Felicity, you might be able to walk at your wedding"** Barry smiled.

 **"What? Wait … didn't you just say that my spine is broken and I would never walk again? "** Felicity's face fell her expression was frozen with surprise.

 **"Are you serious? Did you guys manage to pull it off in 4 days?"** Oliver stood up with a frozen face not believing what his ears had heard

 **"Yes, we did, Ollie. We discovered through STAR West's files a project that was mothballed by the board for being too costly. Something that Curtis thought up before he was working on the power cell. We're really glad you stood up for him and didn't fire him when they told you to. He managed to draw up plans for a chip that could be used on people with spinal injuries to help them walk again. Everything that we needed was there, but as you know theory and practice rarely intermingle"** Caitlin added.

 **"We have been here since you were shot working on a prototype. We hit a few snags, redid the designs, recalculated everything and went through all of it again to make sure the science was solid. It was a lot of work, but we can have a workable prototype by next week. The research is done but the fabrication process will take a while for some of the components. I have to stress this has never been attempted before so it might not work at all. But we can make the prototype available to you the day it had been completed and let Curtis work out the kinks after we're done"** Barry smiled at the blonde woman.

 **"Yes, Dr. McGee can only be here till tomorrow and we have to go back to STAR Labs as well before metahumans start to ravage the city. But it seems that they took a break for the holidays. How civil of them, almost like they knew we had to come here to help you"** Cisco smiled.

 **"Wait. You actually managed to get Tina McGee to help? Isn't she like the head of your biggest competitor?"** Felicity managed to speak

 **"She is, yes, but she is also a friend and we kind of saved her life a while back so she owed us one. We just happened to call in that favor now"** Caitlin smiled.

 **"Like we said. The technology is untested, you will need to have surgery for the chips to be implanted. In addition to the chips and the connections between them, you will have a small power cell that should give you no trouble and that can last 7 days implanted in your back. That way you won't have to carry the large one around with you when you want to shower or swim or take a bath. The large power cells that Tina and Curtis finally managed to get working you should have no problems in carrying around with you while you do your daily tasks"** Barry told the blond woman.

 **"Of course, like with all other spinal injuries you will need to learn to walk again little by little and not forcing yourself, but something tells us that Mr. Queen over here will take care of that. Won't you, Mr. Queen?"** she smiled toward the archer who nodded instantly **"Just one question though. Can you work in your condition? Or maybe you need some time off to recover. Whichever is fine, we just needed to know since without you there, we would have to come over more often from Central City to take care of things"** Caitlin asked as an informative point

 **"Sure I can. All I need is a computer and I can manage STAR West the same way I used to do Palmer Tech. It's even easier now because I don't have to be in lame board meetings once every few days. If there's a problem I can call you directly and I can speak with the employees via the internal system which I have access to from anywhere. So … not a real problem. Besides now that I can't really go anywhere, if I don't do anything I'll die of boredom"** Felicity gave the couple a large smile. She then realized how much she meant to them. They spent 4 days to try to give her an out, a chance of walking again after they saw the initial results. They left Central City and took Cisco and Tina with them to help her. Tears started streaming down her face **"Thank you. Even if this doesn't work, thank you for at least letting me have the possibility of walking as hope for the near future"** she managed to say between the tears. Oliver was completely frozen.

 **"Ollie? You ok? Earth to Ollie?"** Barry asked bringing the archer out of his trance.

 **"You guys managed to do it. I thought you were kidding but you actually managed to do it. Thank you. Thank you so much"** Barry had never seen Grumpy Oliver smile so widely until now

 **"Remember what we told you that day. It's Felicity, come on, is that even a question?"** Caitlin started to laugh and soon the whole room was laughing

 **"We didn't even use super speed, since Curtis was with us. We could have probably done it in two days"** Barry said in between bouts of laughing.

 **"You two can really do anything if you put your minds to it, can't you?"** Felicity smiled brightly through the tears that even after laughing were still streaming down her face.

 **"Well, not really. We haven't been able to set a date for the wedding. So I guess that throws out "anything" out the window"** Caitlin told the group.

 **"Which reminds me. Walking or no walking. Would you two like to be best man and maid of honor at our wedding?"** Felicity asked. The couple nodded instantly. Of course they would be there. They wouldn't miss it for the world.

 **"That question goes right back at you unfortunately"** Barry laughed.

 **"Wait, you want me and Felicity for that?"** Oliver asked. The speedsters nodded and the archer looked at his own fiancée who didn't even wait 5 seconds to nod **"You got a deal, you take ours, well take yours then"** Oliver replied. They said their goodbyes and headed to the places they were staying at.

The next morning they reconvened in the lab and with all the theoretical things finished they decided it would be a good time to leave back to Central City. They said goodbye to Curtis and told them to keep them in the loop about the chip's fabrication status and went with Cisco and Tina back to the airport where they took the jet back.

 **"I told you we should have bought a jet for ourselves"** Barry smiled toward his fiancée **"I don't really care, we managed to make those two turn a tragedy into something happy. At least until we see if the chip works or not"** Caitlin replied

 **"Tina, thank you for the assist. I suspect Curtis would have struggled with the power source for a long time if it wasn't for your help"** Barry extended a hand to the doctor that was sitting opposite them and she shook it

 **"I'm glad that I was actually useful. You did initially ask for anything else except a pure physicist. I was afraid that I might have come and couldn't be of any help. I never wanted glory for myself, like Stagg did. I wanted to use Mercury to make the world a better place. It turns out, I didn't even need Mercury. Just a pair of speedsters and a stubborn engineer. If that chip works, it will change so much in the world. One of the most damaging accidents that can leave someone without the ability to walk would be nullified. Do you understand what that means?"** Tina told them with hope in her eyes.

 **"We're just getting started. We have some new projects that could help firefighters get rid of skin lesions and severe burns in days, a treatment that potentially could help regenerate pancreatic cells and cure diabetics and some other things"** Caitlin told Tina which by now was thoroughly impressed

 **"But why are you telling me this? I'm basically your main competitor. Aren't you afraid I might steal stuff from you?"** she started to laugh.

 **"So steal it. If you can make it faster and better then we can do at STAR Labs, be our guest, we`re going to even give it to you. You do realize the faster these things go out on the market the better it will be"** Caitlin told her. Tina was surprised about the candor of her statement. The two really did not care about money. Their hope and their actions could really make the world a better place.

 **"Tina, we saw that you don't care about money. Neither do we. But the fact that we keep poaching each other's potential hires could be something negative for the both of us. We do have enough money to buy you out. But we don't want that either. I would like to propose that instead of our main competitor you become our main ally. That way we can both focus on stuff that are separate, you can do work that you want and that your lab is well equipped to do and prepared for and we can do work that we're good at. That way if we need help from one another all we have to do is ask and everything we do will more than likely be done faster and better if we cooperate rather than if we step on each other's toes"** Barry offered an alternative.

 **"Barry, you know Mercury doesn't have a quarter of the funding you do. Why even offer me this?"** Dr. McGee asked surprised.

 **"Simple. We can always offer funding for a percentage of the profits of whatever you research. That way you never run out of money and you stop worrying and start making the world of better place and if by some chance you run out of projects to do, we can always offload some of ours and give them to you and we split the earnings halfway. The same is true for the reverse scenario. If you find yourself overloaded we can take some of the work off you and give it to our people. I suspect the discussion about money will not be an issue"** Caitlin replied surprising her. She was thinking the same thing that Barry was. She thought about it, the deal was not set in stone, she knew the two drove a hard bargain after she found out what happened to Palmer Tech, but she also knew that they would not stab her in the back, trying to buy the labs from under her. The understanding that Barry was proposing was beneficial for both, but that didn't interest her. What did was the fact that it would be beneficial for everyone.

 **"You got a deal"** She finally said smiling toward the two speedsters **"Let's make the world a better place, together"**

When they got to Central City, they said goodbye to everyone and rushed them home. Making good time in reaching their own apartment.

 **"You are right. We didn't even think of setting a date for our wedding. Or even who we are going to invite, who are the groomsmen, the bridesmaids and all that"** Barry told her while they were in bed

 **"I don't even know, this is so surreal to me I still haven't managed to wrap my head around it"** She answered

 **"How about somewhere at the end of summer. Getting a venue and everything else wouldn't be much of a problem"** Barry stated quite bluntly

 **"I would like that. Not too hot not too cold. A beautiful day just for the two of us and our friends"** Caitlin smiled brightly.

 **"Any place specific you want to go for our honeymoon?"** he retorted

 **"Wherever is fine as long as I'm with you. But I do want to visit one place in particular. Your father's cabin. We have been there in that landscape for a long while, but we have never actually visited the place"** her face was serious.

 **"I think that can be arranged"** Barry grinned at her kissing her lips.


	36. Unforeseen

Barry and Caitlin had always an issue gnawing at the back of their minds. They wanted to get faster. If not her than at least him. Zoom was someone they knew was objectively faster than they were and they knew that if it came to speed alone they could not beat him when in a pure speedster battle, even if there were two of them. They did manage to attend Eddie and Iris's wedding, but the two decided against something very big and instead took the money they would have thrown on that and took two weeks off for their honeymoon. Cisco had been getting better and better at controlling his power as well. He could now control his breaching ability almost perfectly. One day while they were working in the cortex after checking in on Felicity as they had done for the past couple of weeks they had an idea.

 **"Barry, you know who might be able to help? And yes, I just had a crazy idea, but just hear me out"** She told her fiancée

 **"Let me take a shot in the dark at whoever you thought. Eobard Thawne?"** he replied nonchalantly

 **"I guess you were thinking the same thing I was. He was using the tachyon enhancer to boost his speed. Why can't we do the same?"** she inquired

 **"Because we don't have his speed equations. Without them the enhancer is useless"** Barry responded to her

 **"I know … but ... we could go ask him you know"** she turned to the crazy part of her idea.

 **"Wait, you really want to go back and ask him? Isn't that a little reckless?"** he asked her **"You know the dangers of time travel, what if we come back and the timeline is all screwed?"**

 **"I have considered that, but I think the need we have outweighs the risks"** Caitlin told him. She knew herself that the damage could be great, but their speed is something that they needed to improve. Before they could continue their line of thought Cisco came into the Cortex a little scared.

 **"Guys, I don't know what happened, but the Gideon room has opened by itself and there is a message on the screen for you two and you two only"** the engineer told them. The two speedsters went down to the white room where Gideon used to be and the door closed behind them and the message started to play.

 **"Hello, Barry. Hello Caitlin. If this message decided to play then that must mean it's the day you two are thinking to play with time and go back to talk to Eobard Thawne. As you might know, time travelling is a pain in the ass. So I decided I should spare you the trouble. On the flash drive on the pedestal you will find Eobard Thawne's speed equations"** the door where the reverse flash suit was being kept opened by itself and two shiny new objects **"Those objects that you see before you are two mini fully charged tachyon enhancers. Consider it like I left you two a small present. One small thing, Superluminal particles get slowed when in contact with Frost's cells which means if you want the speed boost, Caitlin, you will have to keep your powers suppressed for the duration of you using the tachyon enhancer. The mini devices can be put under your respective shields and used by tapping once on them or via your bracer displays. They will last for about an hour and need at least one full day to recharge. Good luck, my friends. I hope this helps and try not to mess around with time anymore. Trust me, the damage you can do far outweighs any positive effect. Take care of yourselves"** The voice told them. They could swear it was Barry talking, but the message did not have video, just sound. As the message closed a series of equations appeared on screen and the door unlocked. Cisco came in

 **"What happened? I couldn't get to you the room seemed to have locked itself"** the engineer said looking scared.

 **"Nothing, apparently the room was programmed to give us something today. These are the speed equations that Eobard Thawne used for his tachyon enhancement technology. It will help us get faster. Those two things apparently are mini version of the tachyon enhancers that Thawne used. Can you confirm that for us?"** Barry asked

 **"Give me a few moments. I need to check them for the same components the other enhancer had"** The engineer went back to the cortex and the two speedsters went with him. After about half an hour Cisco confirmed that there were no bombs or other stuff and the two devices are exactly that the message said.

 **"Wonder if we should take them out for a spin"** Caitlin smiled.

 **"Sure, why not"** Barry smiled back at her **"Cisco, can you monitor our speed from here? I don't know how much we might get out of this but it's worth a try"**

 **"There, the enhancers are placed behind your shields. I will want to study them when you come back from your testing. The craftsmanship is strangely familiar"** the engineer told the two

 **"Ok then. So we go to Keystone City and race back here?"** Barry smiled to his fiancée

 **"Sounds good to me. Let me activate the suppressors"** she smiled and they were both out the door. They reached keystone and contacted Cisco back.

 **"OK, we're ready. Are you monitoring us?"** Barry asked.

 **"Everything is ready here. Monitors and vitals are registering. Go for it"** the engineer smiled and the two speedsters activated the enhancers.

 **"This feels … different"** Barry commented in the com

 **"You can say that, it's like I got a rush of energy. Sort of like this enhancer is a mini battery or something"** Caitlin commented.

 **"Ready … set … go"** Barry smiled as both the speedsters ran as their fastest back toward STAR Labs.

 **"Wow, those enhancers really work don't they? You`re both three times faster than anything you`ve gone until now"** Cisco told them through the comm.

 **"Cisco we can still go faster, we're not even straining ourselves now"** Caitlin told the engineer.

 **"Do it"** the short man grinned to himself. The two speedsters ran faster and faster until something really unexpected happened. A blue breach opened in front of them, something similar to the one that they had in the STAR Labs basement. It was pretty large so they couldn't avoid it going straight through.

As they went through the corridor images from the unknown appeared. Something that they have never seen before. They ended up on a street with a lot of cars as they popped out of the corridor they were running thought. In the slowed time scape Barry saw that someone was falling out a window out of the nearest skyscraper.

 ** _"Cait, someone's in trouble. I'm going up"_** Barry told his fiancée. She nodded and prepared to follow him. The Flash went up the building and caught the falling woman, but having some problems with stopping, they both ended up outside the city where both speedsters realized that the woman's clothing was smoking. Barry tried to put her out but stepped back letting Caitlin do that.

 **"You were on fire. Are you all right?"** Barry asked the blonde that he caught.

 **"Barry, look at her. The fire seemed to have no effect whatsoever"** Caitlin was a bit surprised.

 **"Um… I didn't need you to save me"** the strange woman commented looking at the two speedsters

 **"That's cute, you just fell from the sky, if I haven't had caught you then ... you would have probably gone splat on the ground"** Barry smirked

 **"I have to get back to the city. My boss will kill me"** the strange woman told the two speedsters and flew into the sky leaving behind some civilian clothes.

 **"Whoa ... what?"** Barry looked at Caitlin

 **"That's a new one. Weren't we supposed to be the impossible? Now there's someone that flies. This gets stranger and stranger every day"** she commented. The two speedsters started to chase the flying woman and managed to catch up to her in a short time. When she looked down she could see two trails of lightning going over the landscape effortlessly keeping up with her. So ... she decided to land with the speedsters stopping right in front of her.

 **"How did you do that?"** Barry asked with a strange look on his face

 **"I'm Supergirl"** the woman commented sure about herself.

 **"You`re ... who now?"** Caitlin asked **"Never heard of anyone by that name"**

 **"Sorry, I'm just a bit disoriented from that scream I took earlier. How did you catch me?"** she asked.

 **"We ran up the building and we caught you while you fell stopping you to flatten yourself on the ground?"** Barry added.

 **"Sorry if we ran you all the way out here. But we have been working on our speed and ... sometimes it's kind of hard to stop. Guess we're faster than we initially thought"** Caitlin commented

 **"Well thanks, but ... who are you two?"** she asked.

 **"I'm the Flash and this is my partner, Frost"** Barry said like the blonde woman was supposed to know them

 **"You`re ... the who now?"** Supergirl looked at them not being able to keep a straight face.

 **"Wait ... do you not know who we are?"** Caitlin asked very surprised. She was pretty sure that the two heroes were at least known in their own country, but the Blonde Blue eyed girl shrugged and shook her shoulders.

 **"What about ... I don't know. The green Arrow? Black Canary, Firestorm, Zoom? Ever heard of any of them?"** Caitlin asked. Supergirl gave them the same shrug and shook her shoulders in denial.

 **"I'm sorry, I haven't heard of anyone by those names"** she answered. The two speedsters looked at each other and said at the same time

 **"Oh boy"** Barry started to look around confused, but continuing shortly thereafter **"Not as sorry as we are"** He removed his mask and Caitlin did the same **"Hey. I'm Barry Allen, I'm the fastest man alive. This is my fiancée Caitlin Snow and I think we are on the wrong earth. We will probably need your help to go back home"** He offered to the strange woman that was now looking at them with wide eyes. Supergirl instantly blushed at the face of the speedster behind the red mask. Without wanting to gawk she was drawn to his green eyes.

 **"I think while working on our speed we opened a breach to a parallel universe. Well … at least now we know we can do that ... Now we need to find out a) how to get back and b) how to not do that by accident again"** Caitlin commented.

 **"Come with me. We need a quiet place to talk. By the way, my name is Kara Danvers, also known as Supergirl"** she added running toward the city. She decided to run instead of fly so that the two speedsters could follow her. They could not only follow her, but it seemed that even if she was running at top speed the two weren't even breaking a sweat keeping up with her. Barry decided to be a smart ass and run backwards just because he could.

 **"Barry, didn't the message say that the tachyon enhancers need one day to recharge?"** Caitlin asked the other speedster.

 **"I think so. But even so, how do we actually get home … even if the enhancers are fully charged … do we just … run? I know that's how we got here, but there has to be more than that"** His face was surprised. Kara was listening closely, but could not understand what the discussion was about. They came into the city and she took them to a room that looked not finished in the same skyscraper she fell out of. She instantly put a yellow dress on and a pair of glasses hiding her suit.

 **"You two will probably need some civilian clothes while you stay here. Those suits … kind of draw attention"** She commented, in reality she loved how the suits looked. They were seemingly way more advanced than her Supergirl uniform as well. She found that out when an inadvertent burst of her X ray vision, something that had only happened to her in two other occasions, saw through the emblems and noticed the tech inside them.

 **"Um … about that, we didn't really pack money with these suits"** Caitlin scratched the back of her head.

 **"It's fine. Here take some of mine and go get yourselves something that won't stand out"** Kara gave them her wallet and much to her surprise both came back in less than a few seconds dressed quite normally. He was wearing a black and red striped shirt with pants and sneakers, she was wearing blouse with a weathered black pencil skirt and a pair of short heels.

 **"We tried to make it as inexpensive as possible"** Caitlin told Kara **"We didn't run into this problem before. But to be fair we don't even know if our money is the same as this Earth's currency"**

 **"How many earths are there anyway, we're earth … right?"** she asked the speedster while Barry was typing away at the console in the room.

 **"Not so much, Kara. No"** Caitlin wanted to continue but Barry interrupted her

 **"Cait, there is no us here, they have Central City, but there is no STAR Labs there, no Cisco, no Bette, no ... anyone. This might be a problem. We could always chance it and after the tachyon accelerators are recharged just run back, but … we might end up somewhere else entirely"** Barry replied. Two men busted into the room looking seemingly worried. A tall black man and a shorter white guy.

 **"Hey, you all right?"** they asked Kara which nodded

 **"What happened to Siobhan?"** she asked.

 **"Well, after she went all Mariah Carey on you, she just left. We didn't go after her we just came back here"** The shorter man said

 **"At least they have Mariah Carey"** Barry said rolling his eyes at Caitlin. The two people finally realized Kara was not alone and the taller man asked

 **"I'm sorry and you two are?"**

 **"Hey I'm Caitlin Snow and this is Barry Allen"** Frost managed to introduced themselves in the least awkward manner possible.

 **"This is James Olsen and Winn Schott"** Kara motioned toward the two. **"Guys, I'm not quite sure how to explain this but ... I'll just come out and say it. Barry and Caitlin are from another universe"**

 **"Cool"** Winn looked at the two **"So the multiverse theory is actually true?"**

 **"Yes it is. I think we're living proof of that"** Caitlin commented looking at the taller man who had an incredulous look on his face.

 **"Yeah. I still can't believe it and … I'm from another planet"** Kara said bluntly

 **"Wait, what?"** the two speedsters asked

 **"Yea, she's an alien. She might look like us but she is definitely not from around here"** Winn commented.

 **"So you`re an alien?"** Barry looked over to Kara and she nodded snorting a bit.

 **"So are there other aliens on this earth?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"What do you mean by this earth?"** James inquired looking a bit confused.

 **"Cait, mind taking this one? I want to search for other people we know maybe we can catch a break"** Barry told his fiancée while he sat back at the console. She nodded.

 **"Here, I'll explain. Imagine there are all these different earths. One where JFK never got assassinated, one where the Nazis won world war two ... one where we're all evil. All these earths exist in the same space, but vibrate at a different frequency so they can't see each other"** She started

 **"Yeah, but if you could go fast enough, you could open a breach and theoretically go from one earth to another"** Winn completed.

 **"Yes, something like that. We know for a fact that we are not on our earth because for one, we are in a different city from where we started, there is an alien here with us and we're sitting in a building which we have never seen"** Caitlin tried to explain as best the differences

 **"How could you two go that fast?"** James asked with his usual blank face. Barry and Caitlin sped out the door and came back in less than 5 seconds with ice cream for everyone. Kara was delighted about the ice cream squealing when she saw it and she started eating it right away, the two men had shock all over their faces.

 **"We were hit by lightning the same night a particle accelerator exploded and … we became superheroes. I can run fast, but she can throw daggers of ice and do other cool things"** Barry went to his fiancée and grabbed her by the waist smiling.

 **"So let me get this straight"** Winn asked **"Can you two pop back and forth between universes whenever you want?"**

 **"Actually no ... this was kind of by accident"** Caitlin answered

 **"We have travelled in time by accident before, but this ... yeah this is new. WE could have probably figured it out if we had the same facilities we have at our STAR, but … apparently the Central City here and your own National City do not have such a thing"** Barry told Winn who had a look of amazement on his face **"We're kind of stuck here anyway until our tachyon enhancers recharge, even then we don't know if we would make it back to the same earth. We could jump from here into another dimension where none of this exists and float in space for all eternity. Oh, wait, we can't survive in outer space. Scratch that"** the speedster started to rub the back of his head

 **"Which is kind of our first problem. Until we get some sort of idea of where we are in the grand scheme of things and how to get back, as Barry so eloquently put it, we're stuck"** Caitlin finished his sentence. Kara, however, could not take her eyes off the speedster and was barely paying attention to what Frost was saying. She found herself giving smiles and almost flirting with him through her movements. Caitlin noticed the way she was licking her ice cream looking at Barry **"And ... there is a second problem. We have to eat about 10000 calories a day so … yeah "**

 **"Oh you definitely met the right girl"** Winn started to laugh **"I think she can put you two to shame when it comes to eating"** the alien blonde throw him an icy glare, but then turned at the two giving them a warm smile

 **"You two up for donuts?"** Kara asked.

 **"Of course. Who doesn't like donuts?"** Barry commented. Caitlin nodded behind him with a smile.

 **"I know a place. Let's go, it's almost lunch time anyway. You two should try to not get seen by Ms. Grant thought. I wouldn't like to explain how you two got here. Meet me in the lobby downstairs"** Kara told the two speedsters. Caitlin was fast, but Barry bumped into Kara and had Cat Grant see him. Which was not that bad until everyone decided that he was everyone's cousin. That was not something the media mogul would get a cover up. Thankfully she didn't care that much about the new guy to keep them. They met with Caitlin in the lobby a few minutes later and they all went out for donuts. Winn decided to tease James on the fact that Kara never looked at him like she looked at the new guy and that his jealousy was showing. They finally managed to get to the donut shop where Kara found out just how much the two speedsters actually could eat.

 **"Wow, you two weren't kidding. You do eat more than me"** she said looking at how the donut boxes were disappearing.

 **"Yeah, our metabolisms are sped up to keep up with the energy requirement for the speed we put out so …"** Barry bit another donut

 **"We basically need to stuff ourselves like pigs. At least we don`t get fat"** Caitlin commented. He reached for another donut at the same time Kara reached for one of her own touching his hand. Caitlin saw the spark of electricity that went between them and a second later the speedster started to wince. Instinctively she let him put his head on her shoulder and grabbed him rubbing his temples as he was visibly shaken by something really painful

 **"Oh, god, I'm sorry, what did I do?"** Kara looked at Barry who was in extreme pain

 **"I don't think you did anything. After the lightning hit us, Barry has been having these flashes. We don't know what they are, some have been proven false, some are true and there was always a trigger to them. I think now that trigger was you, Kara"** Caitlin told her to calm her down. Barry calmed down and got back his bearings.

 **"I don't understand. This is a totally new earth with people we have never met. How am I getting flashes from Kara?"** Barry voiced himself the question that was on Caitlin's lips

 **"What did you see?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"A lot of things, but at least one of them I can confirm right now. Kara, tell me if this is true or false"** The speedster asked the blonde woman in front of him.

 **"Speak softly"** she cautioned him.

 **"Your name is Kara Zor-El, daughter of Alura In-Ze. You come from a planet called Krypton which is no longer. It exploded when you were 12. You were sent here to earth to protect Kal-El, your cousin. Only things didn't really go as planned, the explosion of your planet knocked your pod of course and you were knocked into the Phantom Zone, a region in space which is outside the boundaries of time. When you finally got out, dragging an alien prison with you in the process, Kal had grown up but you were still the same age. Since you were little and Kal had his own life to take care of, he entrusted you to the Danvers family, to take care of you until you were older. I don't think I missed anything"** Barry told the blonde woman that looked at him with eyes like saucers.

 **"How … how do you know all that? There are only 5 people in this world that know the whole story of how I came here"** She felt her chest tightening. A total stranger, someone who had met just a few hours before, had told her a story that was known by such a small number of people that you could count them on one hand. She did however decide to respond after a bit of thinking **"Yes, everything you just said is true"** Strangely enough when she looked at the face of the two people in front of her, especially in Barry's green eyes, she saw no ill will there. They were both smiling, even though the speedster kept wincing at the migraine he had. For that reason, the tightness in her chest vanished and she stopped being afraid all of a sudden. Something in her gut told her that these people could be trusted **" _How can you not trust that lovable face?"_** she told herself only to admonish herself a few seconds later. **" _Kara, get a grip. He's definitely taken, no point in ogling something that you will never have. We don't want a repeat of that"_**

 **"As Caitlin so eloquently put it earlier, I get flashes. I don't know where they are from and how I managed to get them. Sometimes they are true, sometimes they are false and I think I have a way off this earth. If it's true, we can get home and back here without any problem whenever we want. If it's false… we're back to square 1"** He told the two

 **"You have a way for us to get back home? How?"** Caitlin asked him

 **"I saw an image with some numbers and me jumping through a breach to come here. If that is right, then this is Earth – 38. Or at least that's what the tachyon accelerators will tag it as. The numbers I saw seemed to be frequencies, there is one frequency for our earth and one for this one. It seems that if we vibrate while we run, we can open reaches to the earths that vibrate on that precise frequency. I know this is the first time we have come here, but apparently, in the flashes I have met Kara and I have been here. Or at least that's what I could make of what I saw"** Barry explained, the blonde alien looking at them pretty interested. She kind of understood what Barry was talking about but not completely.

 ** _"We will need to come back here. One of the images showed her floating in space, powerless and then falling toward the ground at high speed. Something tells me she might not survive that"_** Barry told Caitlin mentally

 ** _"Maybe we can convince her to help in the fight with Zoom. She would be an unknown that might tip the balance into our favor, although we don't really know what she can do"_** she responded.

 **"Ok enough of my weird future prediction ability which only seems to be right half the time. Kara, what can you do? We have met metahumans with different powers, but never, you know …"** Barry spoke softly making a sign of something that was flying

 **"Well, I can fly and run faster than the speed of sound, I have heat vision and freeze breath, super strength and I'm basically invulnerable unless Kryptonite is involved"** She replied **" It's a substance that can weaken me, which I reality are radioactive pieces of my home planet"** she continued in the same low tone of voice.

 **"I guess that settles that. You`re pretty much a powerhouse aren't you? As for us we can try what you said Barry, if we reach another earth then …"** Caitlin got cut off

 **"Yea, we'll be the superhero version of "Sliders". I would rather not be stuck going from world to world for eternity"** Barry added, but even if the reference was sound, he was not laughing. He didn't really want to spend all his life jumping parallel universes to get back home. Kara's phone began to ring, it was Winn.

 **"What is it?"** she asked.

 **"We have a problem, Livewire has escaped the detention center inside the DEO. You need to come back here now"** the voice on the other end gave her not so good news.

 **"I'll be right there"** She closed the call looking at the two speedsters **"I need to go, one of my villains seems to have escaped. Actually, I could use your help, the last time she gave me a bit of a problem and some people were hurt in the process, Maybe with you two here we can do that faster and without her hurting innocent people"** Kara told them **" That person has a target on my boss, Cat Grant. She is an ex-employee of the company I work at and with Siobhan out there, I don't think I can protect her by myself"**

 **"Of course we'll help. To be fair we have this sort of problem on our own earth"** Barry smiled

 **"Yeah, except our problems aren't aliens, it's the metahumans that were created by the explosion. Kind of like us … but evil or just plain old crazy"** Caitlin smiled.

 **"So you have someone who can warn us if your boss gets attacked?"** Barry asked.

 **"Yea, Winn and James both work there"** She told the two **"Come with me, we need to go to the DEO"** They nodded and sped out following Supergirl. She stopped, but the two gave themselves a little tour before coming to a halt in the middle of a large room with a strange craft.

 **"This place is pretty amazing"** Barry commented.

 **"Hey, is that a spaceship? It doesn't really look like something from this earth. Unless your dimension is way more advanced than ours because of the alien contact you guys have had"** Caitlin asked already examining the outer hull of the pod.

 **"That's actually my space ship. It's the pod that I came to Earth in. You would be right in assuming that it's not from this earth considering it's actually Kryptonian"** Kara smiled at the interest the two were giving the place.

 **"Can we get a picture with it and with you for reference? It's not like we have something like this on our earth and our engineer will totally fanboy over this"** Barry asked. Kara didn't see a problem with a picture so she had Winn, who had come in for a bit, take a couple of shots of them and the spaceship. While they were doing that a person that they did not recognize came into the room with what could only be categorized as a strike squad which pointed their weapons at the two intruders.

 **"Supergirl, who are these two and how come they got past our security?"** the woman asked.

 **"Relax. They`re here to help us take care of Livewire"** Kara responded **"As for how they got past the security here? Let's just say they never saw them coming"**

 **"Well, we do need all the help we can get. So what do I call you?"** she asked.

 **"Flash. Barry Allen"** Barry replied removing his mask.

 **"Frost. Caitlin Snow"** Caitlin did the same.

 **"I'm Lucy Lane"** the person replied **"I just hope you bring more to the table than quick reflexes"**

 **"I'm a speedster and my day job is catching criminals as well. I'm a CSI"** the man in the red costume replied

 **"I'm also like him except with a few differences"** Caitlin raised her hand a walls of ice encased Lucy from all sides leaving just the side that was toward them open. She put her hand down and the walls disappeared **"My main fields are bioengineering and genetics, but I'm also a CSI"**

 **"Do you have a crime lab around here? Maybe we can help you track this villain of yours"** Barry inquired.

 **"Yes, my sister's lab is right over there. We can use that while she is gone and you need a place to work"** Kara pointed taking them in that direction

 **"Must be nice having a sister. Where is she?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"I have no idea, but she is a bio engineer like you, Caitlin. And part time investigator since we don't really have someone like that here"** Kara replied.

While the two speedsters and Winn worked on a way to track the electrical villain, James came in as well. His face was pretty glum seeing the way Kara was acting around Barry. Even if he did have someone of his own. It was very unusual for Supergirl to act like that in proximity to anyone and for some reason he was jealous, even though Barry was taken. Lucy saw that but before they could talk, Winn called them at the consoles.

 **"We found a way to track her. Actually, Barry did"** he said prompting a scorned look from James.

 **"Of course he did"** he replied with a blank face.

 **"Livewire's ability to absorb electricity from the air around her, kind of like Caitlin does with moisture, gave me an idea. So we came up with an algorithm that monitors fluctuations in the energy grid around the city. From what we managed to gather she doesn't sit in one spot too long which means it will be difficult to catch her"** He pointed to the dot that kept jumping from place to place on the map

 **"That means we have one sure shot of catching her. When she goes after Cat Grant. You mentioned this other person, Siobhan? What can she do?"** Caitlin asked

 **"High pitched yells. She can direct her voice to produce high pitched sonic attacks that can hurt, a lot. I'm invulnerable and she still managed to make my ears bleed. Furthermore, the intensity of the yell dazes the person that it hits. That is why I fell out the window, or more accurately said, got pushed out by the impact of her scream"** Kara told them remembering the burst of sound that hit her before falling. Something was bothering her, Barry could see it on her face, but it was not something that he could put his finger thought of asking when they actually had some time.

 **"Do you have any way of capturing Livewire?"** Barry asked.

 **"Last time we used a capacitor that could trap her. We could build a new one, it's not rocket science, but it will take time"** Winn told them.

 **"We can help with that. Barry, you did look at the plans for the battlefield noise canceller that we have in our masks, right?"** Caitlin asked him

 **"Yea, what are you thinking, Cait?"** the reply came

 **"Can you make Kara a pair? It should counteract Siobhan's screaming. I'll read the capacitor plans and when we finish with the earbuds we can make that as well. What do you think... 30 minutes, maybe an hour?"** she asked.

 **"Maybe less. Kara, you know electrical components right?"** Barry turned to his blonde friend.

 **"Yeah. If not Winn can tell me where to find them, why?"** Supergirl replied

 **"We're going to start building stuff at super speed and we're going to have you get us the components as fast as you can. With your help we can be finished in less than 30 minutes for both items. Then we can be ready for one or both of them if necessary"** Caitlin interjected. Kara and Winn nodded.

The speedsters started working on the items. Winn, Lucy, James and even Kara were dumbfounded. They had never seen anything so beautiful. Two trails of lightning moving in sync while working. Supergirl didn't have time to watch too much, she could hear them talk and got them the components they needed at her top speed asking Winn a few times for locations and what to get. Lucy and James however sat there, with their jaws firmly planted on the floor. With her help and Winn's they managed to finish in less than 20 minutes which was amazing for the people that were watching.

 **"Here, you can put these in your ears. They will not impede your hearing, but they will cancel out any sort of noise that is out of the human range of hearing and is higher than 50 dB"** Barry gave her two earbuds.

 **"This should trap Livewire for a good long while. We will have to stun her though or at least get her voltage down. If this blows we won't have another one unless we build it"** Caitlin commented.

 **"I'm going back to CatCo"** James told the group **"I'll let you know when something turns up"** Winn decided to follow him. Kara went outside at the cave entrance sitting on the grass and watching the birds. The two speedsters followed.

 **"Hey, Kara. What's wrong, you don't seem well"** Barry asked her

 **"It's ..."** She paused considering if she should tell this story to the speedsters that she had just met. After a bit of thought and considering that she already deemed the two trustworthy, she continued **"There is a substance on this earth that can hurt me. I told you about it. Kryptonite. That wouldn't be a problem, except a red variation of it made me go bonkers a few weeks ago. I acted out in rage and almost killed Cat. The people got to see a side of me that was nothing, but hate and disgust. Not to mention the need to be all powerful. They started fearing me and with good reason. I love saving people as Supergirl, but now when the people don't want me around, I feel like I have lost my purpose and it hurts. It feels like I have nothing to do"** Kara told the two

 **"That sounds quite familiar actually. Don't worry, the people will forgive you"** Barry said

 **"How would you know?"** she asked but Caitlin answered.

 **"We went thought it too. A while back one of our metahumans' attacks hit us. The effect was that he brought out in us rage and arrogance. We didn't act like that in front of the whole city, Barry managed to stop himself from yelling at me, but not before acting in full rage mode toward his adoptive father and his mentor at the time. But me … I went bonkers. At one of our training sessions with a very dear friend, I went mad with rage and almost skewered him with ice daggers. One of them actually made a really large hole in his thigh. If they wouldn't have stopped me I could have hurt a lot of people with the last attack I was preparing. I knew what I was doing but it was like I was a witness to my own insanity. It was awful"** Caitlin explained.

 **"That's eerily similar to what happened to me. But your city didn't lose faith in you. Mine did"** Kara backtracked.

 **"It doesn't matter. A city, people, a best friend, a father, people's trust can be earned back. You don't have to prove yourself to do it by running in head first, being a hero means you have to be prepared for the unexpected, which as you might know already is pretty hard, just continue doing what you do and the people will forgive you. Actions speak louder than words Kara. They always have and they always will"** Barry told her and without thinking she let herself put her head on his shoulder sighing. It was strange, before she didn't have anyone who could understand her except Kal, her cousin. Now sitting here with these two, felt like they were almost family. She could feel an attraction toward Barry, something that she could not explain, she started to blush but managed to restrain herself.

 **"It's humbling, isn't it?"** she asked **"Knowing that even when you have super strength, or in your case amazing speed and awesome ice powers, the world still finds a way to give you those kind of problems and take you down a notch"**

 **"Yep"** Caitlin put her head on Barry's shoulder too **" those kind of problems only time can fix and while we are superheroes we are not time lords"** Usually she would have felt jealous considering that what Kara was doing could have been considered flirting with her man, but she didn't. She understood what she had gone through and somehow Kara felt more like a sister to her than an actual threat. The three people just stood there taking in the sight.

 **"Did you seriously make a Dr. Who reference?"** Kara smiled at Caitlin

 **"Who me? No of course not. Why would I be making references to The Doctor"** she grinned at Kara. She liked the alien girl, for someone who she just barely met.

 **"You totally did. She caught you with that one, Cait"** Barry replied making Caitlin roll her eyes. For Barry it was different, Kara's touch, while unknown, felt eerily familiar to him. Like a memory from long times forgotten, of a dear old friend lost to time.

 **"I'm sorry you two might not be able to go back to your world. I hope you do, but in the meantime, I'm really glad you`re here"** Kara's face had lost the gloom it had when she came out. Its place was taken by a bright sunny smile with a hint of gratitude.

 **"So are we"** the couple smiled. Their moment of peace was soon interrupted by a call from Lucy. Livewire and Siobhan had kidnapped Cat Grant and they were holding her in National City Park waiting for Supergirl.

 **"You don't have to do this, you two. This is my fight"** Supergirl stood up

 **"Well since we're three, I guess one for all and all for one makes sense"** Caitlin commented making the other two laugh.

 **"Time to get this show on the road"** Barry grinned and put on his mask. Caitlin turned off her earrings. They were kept on suppression until now, so she could benefit from the increased speed the tachyon enhancer was giving her, but since it was recharging no point in keeping her ice powers suppressed. The usual transformation took place with Frost coming out of the blue fog. Kara smirked.

 **"Nice. Do you actually make that for the show or ... does it occur naturally"** the blonde alien looked at Frost

 **"Occurs naturally. I don't really care about anime transformations as our Cisco calls them. My body cools to restart producing ice so because of the temperature differential that happens"** Caitlin grinned. The two speedsters ran toward the city with Supergirl flying above them.

When they got to National City Park, Livewire was waiting for them and she was not alone. Siobhan had a change of clothes and was there with her. Her screams didn't really bother our heroes now that even Supergirl had the noise dampeners, but Livewire was another problem. She started to attack people at random with her arc blasts, forcing Caitlin to put up ice walls in her path. Siobhan managed to break them, but before she could do anything Supergirl was already on her. Much to Kara's surprise Siobhan took a few punches without flinching and the punches she gave back actually were very strong, enough to put her down for a few seconds.

Livewire was playing with the Flash, trying to hit him, but missing every time. Siobhan yelled at a nearby building making pieces come off that threatened the crowd. Frost managed to shield them with an ice dome while Supergirl picked off the larger pieces with her heat vision. Caitlin had had enough of the screech. She blew a cone of blue fog that enveloped Siobhan.

 **"Supergirl, don't go in the fog. It's paralytic. Siobhan won't be able to move until she is out of it. Call it a … containment measure"** Caitlin yelled at Kara.

Livewire saw that she was outmatched and hit a nearby helicopter that was going above the crowd. More reporters trying to catch a scoop. She had taken a few good punches from Screechy, as Barry promptly named her, but she managed to catch the helicopter and put it down. At the same time she sped and took a lightning bolt to the chest protecting the same crowd that instead of running was watching. That one hurt, she fell to the ground breathing heavily. Livewire tried to hit her again, but Frost put up a double ice wall that completely killed the lightning bolt in its tracks.

Livewire was furious. But being enraged makes you do stupid mistakes. While moving toward Kara to try to shock her again, a hail of ice daggers was hurled at her. They did manage to get out of the way only for two well placed ones, which were fired later, to hit her bringing her to the ground. Barry sped toward her and when she tried to jump into a pole he introduced the capacitor in the circuit making Leslie jump straight into the trap.

Siobhan was almost forgotten because the blue fog kept her mostly immobile, so when Frost waved it away she was ready to attack which would have been a problem, if Barry didn't prepare a supersonic punch in advance. When the fog lifted, Barry sent her flying with one of his punches enough to leave her unconscious. Kara was watching as the two speedsters fought trying to get up.

The child was maybe 11-12 years of age. A boy who ran to her and tried to help her get her on her feet to fight. Another boy soon joined him and then a firefighter came and offered her a hand to get her up. She was surprised, she didn't think that the city wanted her to help, but the act of kindness of those two kids and that fireman convinced her otherwise.

 **"Thank you"** She said to them while speeding toward Barry.

 **"This was a fun fight"** he grinned at Caitlin

 **"Thank you for the help guys. That electrical charge that Leslie hit me with took a lot energy out of me"** Kara thanked the speedsters.

 **"See? Told you the city will eventually forgive you"** Barry replied showing her the crowd that was now cheering for her. He had such a warm smile and a calm demeanor on his face ** _"It's impossible not to like this man"_** she thought to herself cracking a smile. Barry's bracer started to flash green and in a few seconds Caitlin's did too.

 **"It seems that our enhancers are charged. We're going back to the meadow where we first brought you when you fell"** Barry told the alien

 **"I'm taking these guys to the DEO and joining you. Don't leave yet I would at least want to say goodbye to you"** She said speeding away with the capacitor and the unconscious Siobhan.

After a few minutes of waiting in which Barry and Caitlin decided to start kissing while waiting for Kara, she was back in the meadow where they initially met.

 **"Seriously, thank both of you for the help. Nobody was seriously injured because of you. If you ever need my help come find me"** Kara told them and grabbed them into a hug. She didn't see it on herself, but she was blushing profusely fact that prompted Caitlin to grin.

 **"I'm glad we could help. Kara mind coming with me for a minute?"** she told the blonde which followed **"I see you like Barry, so ... why don't you get your own? This one's mine"** She grinned. Kara froze **"Don't worry I'm not jealous or anything, I just saw the way you act around him. I should know, I fell for that adorkable idiot the same way"**

 **"Yeah, but my world doesn't have a Barry Allen, I actually looked and my previous relationships were total wastes of time"** Kara looked rather sad.

 **"Well, if we find you a Barry Allen we'll be sure to send you one to call your own"** Frost started to laugh realizing that she was referring to Barry like he was a piece of paper to be put through a copy machine.

 **"There is no need to be mean, but if that ever happens, I would like that. You are one lucky girl"** Kara smiled toward her.

 **"I know. I know"** she replied moving back toward Barry **"Ok, now that girl talk is over, what did you say we needed to do?"** Barry grabbed both their hands vibrating them.

 **"Did you two catch the frequency?"** the two women nodded Kara feeling flustered at Barry taking her hand **"All we need to do is activate the tachyon accelerators and run. Kara can run with us or fly above us and vibrate as well. The vibrations combined with a burst of speed we can put out will more than likely rupture the dimensional barriers again hopefully getting us home"** he turned to Kara hugging her **"Take care of yourself, continue being the hero that you are and be careful to avoid the breach when it forms or you might get stuck on our earth"** Caitlin hugged her as well and saw the sadness in the blonde's eyes. It was like she was losing something of extreme value to her.

 **"Don't worry Kara. We can figure out this interdimensional travel thing and maybe you can come visit our dimension sometimes. Or who knows maybe we will need your help"** Frost replied putting her earrings on suppression

 **"I hope you do figure it out. I would like to see you again. I'll be there when you need me to help, you can count on that"** Kara said with a smile preparing herself to run **.**

Their plan worked without a hitch. The two speedsters jumping into a newly formed breach that closed behind them, leaving Supergirl alone on the large and now empty meadow. She was sad, two of the people that could understand her better than anyone else could, except her cousin, were gone. She had no idea if she would ever see them again.

The blue breach opened in the same place almost as the last time and as they were running through the corridor it opened and the two speedsters were back in a familiar setting. After a few seconds they heard Cisco yell through their comms.

 **"Where the hell have you two been for the last 24 hours?"**

 **"In another universe. We'll explain as soon as we're back at the labs"** Barry told him as they sped back to the cortex. They put him up to speed and the engineer almost fainted fanboying at the fact the two had met a super powered beauty in their travels. Barry had Cisco check the speed that they were at before they breached and the results were more than they had expected. Their top speed with the enhancer now almost rivaled Zoom's. That was something that the two were really happy about.


	37. Rescue

Cisco was fiddling with his glasses in his lab. Over the last few weeks he managed to made them work in such a way that he could vibe whenever he needed and over whatever distance. His capacity to open and close breaches at will had increased as well, he did not try to open breaches to anywhere else except Earth two. He had gotten the frequency of the vibrations off Harry.

Harry on the other hand while everyone was being all happy and cozy at Christmas, managed to break into the CCPD on his earth and gather all the data he could on Zoom. He found out some things and from that he was able to kind of pinpoint the location of his lair, but he would need confirmation. He also managed to use Thawne's speed equations to build our two heroes rings where they could store their suits, which was a very welcome addition and the two thanked him for it.

Barry and Caitlin decided to ask Oliver to take care of Central for the time they would be gone to Earth two. They knew that the archer couldn't do that much against the metahumans that were prowling Central City, but with the help of Joe and Eddie and their metahuman capture gear they stood a chance. The two speedsters had promised Harry that they will help her save his daughter. With that Harry came to their side and started to tell them about what Zoom told him to do.

The STAR Labs crew found out something even more interesting. Jay was looking for his doppelganger on earth 1 to see if he could repair his cells that were damaged because of the Velocity that Harry invented. The crew kept searching, but there was nobody named Jay Garrick on their earth. Which gave Caitlin an idea even back when they found out that he didn't have a double. She had Bette use Felicity's face recognition software to look for someone with Jay's facial features. Much to their surprise … after quite a long while of searching a newly arrived person in Central City triggered the facial scan. His name … was not Jay Garrick. It was Hunter Zolomon.

Harry recognized the name immediately. Hunter Zolomon on his earth was the only case of a serial killer that Central City had had in a decade. He was supposed to have died the night the Particle Accelerator exploded, then the scientist realized that if he didn't die then the power of the explosion must have given him speed. Just like it did with Barry and Caitlin.

Jay wanted to stay and help the city and keep using the Velocity, but after the flashes that Barry had, nobody really trusted him and he was always kept at arm's length by Bette when he was in the lab. Also the couple did not give him access to the more sensitive areas which was clear as to why. Seeing that nobody is interested in helping him regain his speed and that Harry was going back to earth two, he helped Cisco in developing dimensional bombs that would collapse the breaches in Central City.

One after another all the breaches were closed except the one in the STAR Labs basement which was now the only way to and from Earth two. They suited up and Barry ran first with Cisco and Jay through the breach and Caitlin followed soon after with Harry. They were on a new earth, some of the technology they saw was something new to them. Something that on their earth had been only theorized but not yet materialized. The first person they met was quite a surprise. Henry Hewitt, who they had locked in the pipeline for being a real angry version of Firestorm, was the first that greeted them, causing the three to cringe but not say anything. Jay went on his way and the four were left sitting around Harry's office.

 **"Cisco, time to put on your magic glasses. See if you can tell us where Zoom is hiding, with a higher degree of accuracy that just guesswork"** Barry told his friend.

 **"Ok. Let's test out these bad boys"** Cisco put them on and ... nothing happened. **"Somethings off. They aren't working here"**

 **"Of course they aren't"** Harry almost face palmed **"Your vibes must work on frequency. The glasses are calibrated on the frequency of your earth not mine. That's why they don't work"**

 **"Guys, without Cisco's visions we're up a creek without paddles right now. All we have is Harry and whatever he managed to get from the CCPD. Which isn't telling us much"** Caitlin said a bit despaired.

 **"Harry can you search Caitlin and I's doubles on this earth? Maybe we can impersonate them and get some more information out of people"** Barry told the scientist. He nodded and started to look up the information on the two.

 **"There we go. Barry Allen. Director of the CSI department at the CCPD. That should be useful. He should have the access to the information we need"** Harry commented. **"Let me look Snow up"** after a few minutes the same thing popped up **"Caitlin Snow, detective at the CCPD"** Barry and Caitlin were a bit stunned by the detective bit. **"They seem to have files that I cannot break the encryption to. There might be more to them than we think"**

 **"I know it's far-fetched but have you ever thought about you as a cop?"** Barry inquired staring at his fiancée.

 **"I did, quite a few times. When I was young I wanted to put people like my mother behind bars. She was a total bitch and could not care about her children"** Caitlin stated quite bluntly.

 **"Can you look up the others as well? Maybe they are people that we can ask questions about the state of affairs in this dimension"** Barry continued

 **"Joe West, singer, Broadway actor, producer and musician. Not really helpful. Iris West. This is strange, this file required level 5 access with a fingerprint"** Harry told them

 **"Who's fingerprint?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"Barry's apparently"** Harry told them and dragged Barry over to put his thumb on the screen. **"There we go. Oh … my"** his face went a bit red looking at the picture that appeared on the screen **"Iris West, also known as Fire Bolt. Working for some unknown organization that helps Zoom conduct his terror attacks, she is a metahuman with the power over fire"** Harry looked at the two strangely.

 **"That's … interesting. In this reality I don't have any sort of powers and Iris is a metahuman? And not even a good one, she's a murderer? Where the hell did we end up, Barry?"** Caitlin asked with a surprised look on her face.

 **"This will be even more of a surprise then. Her partner in crime is someone the papers call Death Storm. Look familiar to you, Snow?"** Harry asked turning the monitor over only to see her gasp. Barry looked at it as well

 **"Barry, that's Ronnie. He's alive in this universe"** she managed to utter.

 **"Not only that but it appears he managed to shack up with Iris. This is really stranger than fiction"** Barry commented.

 **"You two get your doubles over here. Talk to them, if they can't seem to agree on what you need just taze them and lock them in the back room. They should be out for a while and you will be free to roam the city"** Harry commented while going over to Cisco to help him adjust his glasses. The two speedsters did exactly that, bringing their doubles back into the room that now was empty.

 **"What happened?"** Earth 2 Barry commented. **"How did we get here?"** He was wearing a pair of glasses and apparently he was a big nerd. Which was fitting because Barry was one as well.

 **"Honey, I have no idea where we are. But this isn't good"** Earth 2 Caitlin commented and pulled out her gun. The moment she saw the two earth 1 people standing there wearing their exact faces they both froze.

 **"Honey? That's new. You never called me that"** Barry quipped

 **"I don't like telling sweet things to people. Or at least not in public"** Caitlin winked at her fiancée. **"Hello you two. You`re a bit confused aren't you?"**

 **"Who are you?"** she asked pointing her gun at the two speedsters only to be taken away and deposited on the table behind them in a trail of silver lightning

 **"We're you. Only from another parallel earth. I'm Frost and this Flash. Look, we need your help and I know you`re smart people. I would rather not have to taze you so we can go about our business through the city"** Caitlin told their doubles.

 **"What kind of help?"** Earth 2 Barry asked.

 **"Simple, we need to find Zoom's hideout. As you might have seen we are speedsters as well. Zoom is holding someone very important to us captive and we would like to rescue them. But we don't have enough data, which means we need your help"** Barry told them

 **"Are you here to kill him?"** Earth 2 Caitlin asked.

 **"We are superheroes, Caitlin. We do not kill people. Worst case scenario we will beat him up so bad that he won't be able to run and you can take him into custody and do whatever you want with him"** Frost responded to her counterpart.

 **"I'm fine with that. What do you need from us? I won't even ask about the double and the other earth. You guys being here is already giving me a headache"** Earth 2 Caitlin spoke while rubbing her forehead.

 **"First of all, I need you to go to the CCPD and lock yourselves in the CSI lab for a couple of hours. We need to scope out the place and it would be beneficial that nobody sees you while we're out there. Secondly, while you`re in the CSI lab, run every piece of evidence and clue you have on Zoom. Patterns, location where he attacked, movements of the people that you know work for him. See if you can pin down the location of his hideout. That way we can go rescue our friend and maybe even set a trap for Zoom. Third and last, can you tell us where you live so we can go borrow some of your clothes? These suits kind of stand out"** Barry smiled at his double.

 **"Ok. If you are us then that means we can trust you. Here's the key and the address to our apartment. Go get changed first"** Earth 2 Caitlin told them. They came back after 20 seconds looking exactly like the persons in front of them, with a few differences. Barry had no glasses and Caitlin didn't have her badge and gun.

 **"That is freaky"** Earth 2 Barry commented **"The differences don't matter that much. I sometimes wear contacts and Caitlin is off duty sometimes as well. So you missing those pieces won't make a huge difference. That however, will"** he pointed to the ring on Caitlin's finger.

 **"Why would that make a difference? Aren't you …"** she asked looking at her counterpart

 **"Well this nerd didn't ask, so you going out with that big rock on your finger might start something. You do want to go incognito, don't you?"** the other Caitlin replied. The other Barry seemed a bit flustered by the realization of what his Caitlin had said.

 **"Ok, I'll put it in the suit for now. We have to wear them underneath anyway since there is no place for us to store them. We thought taking the rings that held our suits would stand out even more here. Should we take you back to the CCPD?"** Caitlin asked the two doubles.

 **"Yes. Then you can come out of the lab and close it and we'll be free to do our research. Nobody has the key to the lab except us and people seeing you leave will think we took a day off or something"** Earth 2 Barry answered. The two did what they were told and then walked out of the CCPD with people that they knew from their earth or new people that they didn't even meet, greeting them and telling them to have a nice day.

They had talked with their doubles and decided to follow their routine for the day. They went to Jitterbugs, which apparently was a duplicate of their own coffee shot only it was a bar where a familiar face was singing on the stage.

 **"Look, Cait, that's Joe. I had no idea he could sing that well"** Barry told her while sitting down at a table which their doubles told them that it was their regular spot. Joe even gave them a smile. It was obvious he knew them. But their respite didn't last long. Two familiar faces walked in. The two recognized them instantly, Ronnie and Iris.

 **"We're looking for two breachers. People that should not be here. Give them up quietly and we won't roast you"** Iris growled at the people in the establishment. She lit up her hands in warning to everyone. Ronnie lit up as well and started throwing random fireballs that were not meant to hurt people, but scare them into talking.

 **"Iris? What the …"** Barry realized that he had said too much. Not many people knew Fire Bolt's real name. And the only one that was supposed to, was singing on the stage. She threw a concussive fire blast straight at Barry but missed and hit her own father turning him to ashes. She yelled and wanted to burn everyone in the restaurant, apparently her powers were like the initial Killer Frost. But whereas Frost got her power from pain, loneliness and hate, Fire Bolt got her power from anger. The two decided to just handle the situation by speeding the metahumans to the plaza where there was no one around.

 **"Well hello, breachers"** Iris licked her lips

 **"They're speedsters, babe"** Ronnie smiled from beside her **"Let's fry them".** The evil metahumans started attacking Barry and Caitlin. The two just tried to avoid their attacks and not hurt them, in the end the people that they were fighting had at one point meant the world to them. In the end they had to retaliate in order to at least hurt them enough to escape. Barry formed a tornado that sucked out all of his oxygen. Without that the metahuman just fell to the ground unconscious. Caitlin trapped Fire Bolt into a prison of ice. She made it triple layered so even with her powers it would take her a while to get out of it. The two sped back to Harry's lab cursing in their minds.

 **"We got found out. Zoom must have some sort of breach detection system because we went to a bar and Ronnie and Iris just jumped us"** Barry told Cisco and Harry.

 **"That's not the problem now. Zoom will probably find out that you`re here and when he does, the death of my daughter will be on your heads"** Harry cursed himself for ever agreeing to that plan. They received a call from the other Barry

 **"We're sending you a location. One of our snitches told us that's the place where most of the metahumans that work for Zoom meet. Maybe you should pay them a visit"**

 **"On our way. Cisco did you manage to get your glasses working?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"Yes, they don't work for vibing, but they still help me channel the blasts I can produce and open other breaches if needed. I'm coming with you guys"** He said.

The three friends went straight to the abandoned warehouse that their counterparts found out about. Only to be greeted by Iris and Ronnie.

 **"Come on, you two were my friends. How the hell do you work for Zoom"** Cisco yelled at them

 **"They work for me. I work for Zoom"** a voice in the shadows said while it walked straight toward them. They could see a copy of Cisco just with styled hair and maybe some foundation, to which Cisco made a really nasty face, walk toward them **"Yes, Cisco. You know who I am"** the Earth 2 Cisco laughed.

 **"I was sure there was another me here"** Cisco said with a cringed look on his face.

 **"And I knew you were coming, Cisco. Even before you stepped into the breach on your earth. See, we are all connected, Francisco. I can see through different dimensions and times. Your coming here was not a surprise to me"** the duplicate smirked

 **"The name is Vibe"** Cisco returned his duplicate

 **"Reverb"** The other one offered looking at himself.

 **"Not the worst name you could come up with. Not the best either"** Cisco quipped.

 **"I've been watching you for a while, Vibe. I have to say I'm pretty disappointed in you. You haven't even begun to explore the extent of your powers"** Reverb snarled

 **"I can say the same for you. I don't know what's worse. That you`re part of Zoom's gang or that ... samurai situation you got going on the top of your head there"** Vibe retorted at his double. Before that exchange was finished Zoom showed up. He got tired of all the talk and when Ronnie tried to attack the Flash, his reward was a vibrating hand through the chest. Next was Reverb, Zoom knew he couldn't be trusted and had his eyes on him for a while, but now, when he chatted with the people he wanted caught instead of bringing them to him… he was useless as a leader. The last attack was him trying to gut Fire Bolt, but he didn't manage. In less than a second Barry was next to him and gave him a massive dose of the nanites that they had brought along with them slowing him enough for the speedster to do some serious damage. Zoom had to retreat, leaving a crying Iris over the body of her now dead boyfriend and the three friends now Looking at each other in surprise. They didn't even imagine that Zoom would do such a thing to his own people. Also Barry seeing the image of Vibe and Reverb talking confirmed that one of his flashes was now real. He was keeping score, the percentages and probabilities might have come in handy later.

 **"I am going to kill him, He is going to burn to ashes"** Iris cried over her dead boyfriend, while her hair and hands were burning something fier **ce.**

 **"We want to capture him. We need the location of his lair. If you want to kill him at least give us that before you kill yourself. You have no chance against Zoom. You know that"** Caitlin told her. Iris lunged at her throwing two fire balls only to be immobilized by Barry in less than what it takes to blink. Caitlin erected a double ice wall that made the fire balls disappear.

 **"So, what will it be then?"** Barry asked Iris holding her down **"You can do whatever you like, we aren't here to stop you, all that we require is the location of his hideout"**

 **"He has a lair in the mountains a while away from Central City. Give me a map, I'll show you"** She told them. Cisco produced a map and she showed them a point which yielded a series of coordinates from the touch map **"There, let me go. I want to go burn that killer for Ronnie"** The three could see the fire in her eyes. She was hurting bad.

 **"Just as long as you understand. You can't beat him. You`re going to your death"** Barry told her.

 **"I know. But a life without Ronnie isn't worth living. Let me go" s** he asked almost begging. Barry let her go and she ran out the back door.

 **"She really loved him, didn't she?"** Cisco looked at the dead Ronnie on the floor.

 **"Love makes people do stupid things. Or the greatest things ever"** Barry added.

 **"She knows she has no chance in beating him, yet she is still going. I would call that stupidity, but it's nothing that I wouldn't personally do if Zoom would kill you, Barry. So I'll reserve judgement on her"** Caitlin said looking at Barry who should have had a surprised face, but nothing surprised him anymore coming from his fiancée. She knew what she was capable of, because he would have done the exact same.

 **"Harry, we found Zoom's hideout. Well come get you and then speed out to there. I suspect the entrance will only be accessible to speedsters so you will need us to get in there"** Caitlin told him.

 **"Come get me. I'm at the labs"** the voice responded

The two speedsters talking Harry and Cisco in tow went to the location that Iris had marked on their map. They sat in front of a cliff who had a large entrance three quarters of the way up. Only a speedster or someone flying like Death Storm could go in there. Luckily for them, they were both speedsters.

They got into the lair and found Jesse and an unknown person in the cells. In the cell in front of Jesse there was a person wearing an iron mask who was trying to get their attention. The glass was special, Caitlin couldn't freeze it or break it. Barry however managed to phase quite easily through the glass and get both the kid and Jesse out. They now had a problem, there were six of them and two speedsters. Someone would have to stay behind while Barry and Caitlin took the other two down. They didn't have time to choose. Zoom came back and even heavily affected by the nanites, even if he got them out by vibrating they still managed to drain him quite effectively, he still posed a threat. The speedsters got Jesse and the other kid down then came back for Cisco and Harry. Caitlin wanted to use her powers to put Zoom in an ice prison but reading her face Barry nodded at her not to do it. They still had to keep quiet about her powers and since Killer Frost did not exist on this world that was an advantage. Barry used what he had learned from Eddie to put his speed behind one of his normal punches and threw Zoom into a wall leaving him dazed. In the confusion they all managed to go back to STAR. However there was a complication. Both Jesse and the kid were in a deep coma.

 **"Who is this?"** Barry asked. **"Can we look him up?"**

 **"His name is Wally West. He's Joe's son… Well Joe is dead and Iris is probably roaming the world looking to kill Zoom. We'd better take him with us. Let's go back home for now"** Cisco said.

 **"Wait. I need to call our doppelgangers"** Barry said as he dialed a number.

 **"Barry, Caitlin. We managed to rescue our friend and severely diminish Zoom's Meta brigade. He will not be a problem for at least a week. I'm sending you schematics for metahuman gear. Cuffs and containment cells that can hold the new metas. You should be able to capture all of them and get them to trial now. I suspect Zoom will be coming for us after he gets his bearings so you should have at least a week to get all that ready. Good luck and stay safe"** Barry told their counterparts. **"And for god's sake Barry, just ask her to marry you already. You know she wants to. Stop being a wuss"**

 **"Thank you for what you did. We were right in trusting you. Will we ever see you again?"** the two asked.

 **"Probably not. But nothing is set in stone. Take care of yourselves and go get them"** Caitlin told them. **"Your people are counting on you"** they closed the call

 **"Do you have a speed cannon here too?"** Barry asked.

 **"No, you two are going to have to take us through the breach with your speed. Can you do that?"** Harry asked.

 **"Yes. Let's go"** Caitlin took the two comatose people. They made the jump successfully and Joe and Eddie were waiting for them on the other side. The moment the two brought their passengers back, Eddie threw one of the dimensional bombs in the breach and it sealed shut.

 **"Come on, we need to get these two to the med bay"** Caitlin took Wally and Barry took Jesse as they flashed up to the ward. The others followed in a rapid manner. The two tied them to machines and started recording his vitals. Joe however was … surprised at the new arrival.

 **"Barry, Caitlin, who is this second person you brought with you?"** he asked surprised.

 **"Someone who has no more family on that earth, someone who survived instead of dying, like he did here. Remember, you told me Francine was pregnant when she left. She had a miscarriage, which lead to the whole cancer debacle now. This is Wally West. Your son, which was never born on this earth"** Barry told him watching his face fall

 **"What's wrong with the kids?"** Harry asked visibly disturbed by their comatose states **.** Barry looked over their tests. He had seen this before. Minimal brain activity but with high heart rate.

 **"I need to see their blood. Caitlin, take a look at their cells. If I'm correct there two are in a Speed Force coma. When they wake up they will become speedsters like us"** Barry concluded. He had the most knowledge about a speed force coma from the 6 months that he studied Caitlin's progress.

 **"Two speedster kids. That's all I needed"** Joe said with a bit of a worry in his voice. Caitlin went to get some of Jesse's blood and when she touched her a spark went through them and she woke up. Harry was in tears seeing his baby girl all right.

 **"Hey dad, what did I miss?"** she smiled at Harry that dropped all the jerk act and gave her a big hug.

 **"Hey, Jesse, what happened to you? You were in a coma when we found you"** the scientist asked his daughter

 **"I don't know. There was a bright light that hit us and after that I don't remember anything. I think Zoom tried to recreate the particle accelerator explosion to obtain even more speed, because the wave looked like something that had come off our own particle accelerator when we had the initial explosion that created all of the metahumans that are now here"** She told them. Barry in the meantime touched Wally who woke up as well. He was very confused, his system did not adjust yet to the fact that he had been in a coma for a while.

 **"Where am I"** he asked. **"Dad? How are you here? Why do you have a gun?"** Joe could not stop himself from crying **"What's happening here. Where am I?"** He continued to ask.

 **"You are no longer in your own world, Mr. West. This is a different earth. I'm sorry but the family you had back on your earth has died. Your father was killed by a metahuman and your sister ... well you know"** Harry told him bluntly

 **"How can that happen? There are other parallel earths?"** He inquired with a surprised face.

 **"Joe, can you take Wally and talk to him about our world?"** Caitlin asked **"I suspect he has a lot to ask. You are welcome to stay here if you so wish, Wally"**

 **"We might even be able to help you get back to your earth eventually, but not right now. We need to take care of Zoom. We don't want to send you back in a world where a mad speedster might kill you at any moment"** Barry told him. The kid understood and went quietly with the man he now knew that wasn't his father, but was. It was a strange world.

 **"Barry, you were right. Their cells show signs of rapid regeneration. The Speed Force is present in their systems, but it's not stable"** Caitlin spoke from the other side of the lab.

 **"That won't be a problem. They can stabilize as long as they don't use the power for a while. Your cells were like that at the beginning, Cait. You were in a coma so your powers managed to stabilize given time"** Barry smiled. He did not however see coming the large hug that Harry, the resident jerk, gave him.

 **"Thank you for getting my daughter back safe and sound. Both of you"** He smiled.

 **"Safe, yes. Sound, we need to keep an eye on her and Wally. Just to be sure they're all right"** Caitlin interjected

 **"I wouldn't know. I'm a physicist and an engineer. How about I leave that to the medical brigade to take care of"** Harry smirked

 **"There is something that bothers me. Why did Zoom recreate another Particle Accelerator Explosion?"** Barry asked. **"That doesn't make sense, unless he is losing his speed or something happened to his connection to the Speed Force"**

 **"Barry, I think you might be right. While I was helping Mr. Garrick regain his speed, the color of his lightning had changed from Orange, like yours, to blue. It returned to being Orange after he got his speed powers back but …"** Harry told the group

 **"Harry, you developed the drug. What would happen if a speedster would overdose on it?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"I suspect he would acquire great speed but the drug isn't finished so his cells would continue to die. The more he took, the more Speed Force he would need for his cells to stay alive. I can't believe I was so blind. I think Zoom is dying. That's why he's trying to get your speed by any means necessary. Without it he will eventually die because his cells won't regenerate anymore"** Harry said with a surprised look on his face.

 **"So what are you saying? That if we keep the breaches closed and him without any sort of access to the speed force he will eventually die?"** Barry asked.

 **"Well, yes, but the problem is, how long would it take him to die? He can do a lot of harm in that time. He can even damage the multiverse since he is fast enough to jump universes. He will go to another universe and find another speedster to feed on. No... We need to put him down. Or at least lock him up"** Caitlin came to a conclusion.

 **"Harry, can you give me some help? I got Reverb's glasses and it has some components that mine don't. I might be able to keep an eye on Zoom with the upgrades since my evil double told me he had been keeping an eye on me for a while. Can you help me reverse engineer them?"** the engineer asked,

 **"Yeah. I suspect his glasses were more advanced, since he could also use them to vibe between universes. We can get to work on it if you want right away. Barry and Caitlin will take care of Wally and Jesse"** Harry smiled at the engineer who was shocked. Since he had arrived on this earth, Harry had never smiled. Just his pompous smirk. Cisco had never told him but he did admire the man, even if he was a jerk. Barry and Caitlin were left in the Cortex to fend for Jesse who was still in bed.

 **"So you two are speedsters, like the Flash in our world"** she inquired.

 **"Yes, we got our powers from a lightning bolt. I can run and my fiancée here can run and do really cool stuff with ice"** Barry told her visibly proud of the woman that was working on the other side of the lab.

 **"And now you think I might be like you?"** She asked.

 **"We don't think, we know. Only your power hasn't stabilized yet in your system. Until it does I suggest you don't try running anywhere. You might end up hitting your face at Mach 2 in a wall and dying or even worse, you can vibrate uncontrollably and go through a wall and die instantly when you de phase. So for now, Jesse. You will take it slow. Understand?"** Caitlin told the girl smiling.

 **"How do you know?"** the girl asked with a smirk

 **"Let's just say the first time Caitlin discovered she could move fast, the first thing she did was run into a door frame and dislocate her shoulder. That was something easy compared to what someone with unstable power can do. Which is why we told you to go slow. For now. If I'm right then the power should stabilize in your systems in a few weeks and then ... we'll see. You might want to go back to earth two with your dad and be a hero there. Or just be a normal girl. But until then we'll make sure you don't disintegrate or run into any walls. All right?"** Barry told her with a smirk.

 **"All right. And thank you for coming to get me. I know dad tried, but he was no match for Zoom"** she commented.

 **"You are welcome. Now get some rest. We can talk later"** Both the speedsters left the cortex and let her rest for the rest of the day. Joe and Wally were outside on a bench talking. Wally had been crying visibly. The two speedsters left them to their devices mentioning to Joe that Wally will need rest so when they finish they should go back to the cortex and he can have Cisco put the young speedster under the machines so they could monitor his progress as well. Joe agreed. Barry and Caitlin decided to take a nice long walk together to watch the sunset. It was something the both preferred and didn't have time to do in a while.


	38. Otherworldly

Caitlin had something on her mind for a while. Back when they were on Earth 38 she remembered Barry having flashes. She did not ask after that what they were and he didn't tell her. It was bothering her, not too much, but it was enough to sit in the back of her mind. They were both at home after a day of chasing a mad scientist who made herself a version of the Velocity drug and called herself Trajectory. Sadly they could not save her or apprehend her, the speedster simply dissolved into thin air when she took an overdose of the drug to try to get away from Flash and Frost, Confirming Harry's theory about the fact that the user's body would not be able to sustain itself in the case of an overdose. They still had no timeline as to how fast that would happen. Trajectory used quite a lot of the speed drug and not being able to capture her meant they had no timeline as to how it would affect the cells and how fast. Zoom could still live for a long while and could still do a lot of damage.

 ** _"Barry. Mind if I ask you something?"_** she asked her partner mentally. They were eating and it seemed the best way without talking with your mouth full.

 ** _"Cait, we're going to be married, when will you learn to just ask me whatever you want to know? You know you don't need permission from me"_** Barry smiled at her.

 ** _"Remember when we jumped by accident to Kara's earth?"_** he nodded **" _You had a series of flashes there. You never told me what those were about, except that she might be in danger"_**

 ** _"They were extremely confusing. They weren't about us. They were about Kara and what I told you was about the best I could get out of them at the time"_** Barry replied quite nonchalantly

 ** _"Do you know more now?"_** she inquired again

 ** _"Let me pull that from the back of my mind and see"_** the answer came

 ** _"Why would you have flashes about a person that you have barely met"_** Caitlin replied

 ** _"Because I don't think they are flashes anymore, at least not these ones. I'm remembering something that should have happened in a previous timeline. It makes much more sense. I talked to Cisco and he explained to me how his dreams and waking nightmares worked back when he was killed by the Reverse Flash in that timeline we erased. These behave exactly like what he described. From what I could gather, I knew what happened to her and everything else, because somewhere, in some other universe, I have already met her. I know, that sounds wild, but I don't have a better explanation"_** Barry told his beautiful fiancée

 ** _"I guess that makes sense especially if what you`re remembering is something from the future. But what did you mean when you said we might need to go back and help her?"_** Caitlin inquired with a strange look.

 ** _"Flashes are gone now. Thank god my memory is good enough to record everything with precise clarity. There was supposed to be a large conflict. A big battle that she is to be in soon and at the end of it she nearly dies. I didn't get any frame of reference, I didn't get anything, a time or a date. Just an image of her floating in space and coming down to earth like a meteor. She was unconscious and her powers had blown out. She overused them, but beside that I have nothing"_** He replied to her

 ** _"Wait, her powers can blow out? What do you mean?"_** she returned the question

 ** _"From what I've seen in the images, she is just like a normal human, except her genetic structure is wildly different. Think of the Flash, or Frost for that matter. We are mutants, basically. So is she, except where we get our speed from the speed force she gets her abilities from the Yellow Sun above our heads. Her cells are like giant batteries. If she uses her powers recklessly or too much, those batteries blow out and she loses her power"_** Barry stated

 **"I see, but ... why didn't you say anything to her if you had that flash?"** Caitlin started to talk normally as she washed the dishes.

 **"Because you know how those things work. The fact that I knew her backstory and her alien name didn't signify that the other things I've seen were true. They might not be and I could have sounded like a nut. Or I could have told her that and she could have become really paranoid"** He smiled toward her.

 **"Maybe now that Cisco can see through dimensions, we should have him check on Kara. If she needs help we can go help. Of course a powerhouse alien wouldn't be a bad help when we decide to take on Zoom"** She smiled.

 **"Of course you`re right, my wonderful Cait. We can tell that to Cisco in the morning. Now come to bed. It's late and all that running today got me tired"** Barry smirked.

 **"Tired? You just ate and it's 8:30 PM, don't give me hogwash, Barry Allen"** She smirked in return.

 **"Fine, fine. You do know that there are other things to be done in the bedroom besides sleeping right?"** He grinned coming up to her and kissing her neck, while on his hands was caressing her thigh. She gave in to the sweet kisses and after a bit of wobbling around, they were both in the bedroom, Barry closing the door.

The next morning the two went back to STAR Labs. They found Cisco in the training room with Harry blowing up dummies with his Vibe waves. The construction on the labs was finished and the speed lab was as well. Cisco had some free time to play with his powers.

 **"Morning Cisco. How's the training working out?"** Caitlin smiled toward the engineer.

 **"It's fine. I can focus the blasts and their destructive power. I just can't aim very well"** He said with a saddened voice.

 **"You'll get it Cisco. All you need is more practice. You should have seen us the first time we tried to throw lightning. I think we hit maybe 2 in 30 targets. What we actually wanted to ask you. Can you try to vibe someone that is from a different earth than ours and earth 2? Also is by any chance that solar power cell that I asked you to build a few days ago ready?"** Barry asked.

 **"I can try and yes, the cell is built. Although I don't know who can use it. Concentrated solar radiation is harmful to humans and can give you cancer in the best case scenario. It's in my lab. Do you have something of hers that I can touch?"** the engineer asked.

 **"No, but maybe we can think about her and you can vibe that off us?"** Caitlin asked. **_"How did you even think to have him built a solar cell?"_** she asked Barry

 ** _"No clue, now that you mention it, I thought it was a good idea to have one of those, but I never thought as to why. Huh, interesting"_** he commented.

 **"I've never tried that before now. Let's see if it works"** the engineer was hopeful

 **"All right then. Let's give it a shot"** Caitlin said and she joined hands with Barry. They both thought of Kara and Cisco touched them. He could immediately feel the sensation he got when he was vibing. The two speedsters left him to his devices until he finished vibing, Barry going into his lab and getting the cell he asked for.

 **"What did you see, Cisco?"** Barry inquired.

 **"I'm assuming your friend is a blonde girl with blue eyes, seriously hot, dressed in a blue costume with a red skirt and a cape, the one in the pictures you had when you came back last time from that universe?"** Cisco responded with a question

 **"Yes. That's her. What did you see?"** Caitlin answered the engineer asking something of her own.

 **"I don't know if it was from the future or from the past. But she and another green alien were fighting 3 others. Two humans and a blue chick. She was getting kind of beat up, dude"** Cisco told them kind of worried.

 **"Humans? That can't be right. That girl is very strong, humans would have nothing on her. Unless."** Caitlin looked at Barry

 **"Unless they're like her. Kryptonian. Two against one and the blue chick versus the green guy … that might be a problem"** Barry made a grimace.

 **"What do you think, Barry?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"Cisco, can you make a breach to earth 38?"** Barry asked zipping into his suit. Caitlin got the idea quite fast putting on her suit as well

 **"Do you have the frequency?"** the engineer asked.

 **"Yes. It's this one"** the speedster gave his friend a number.

 **"I'm not going to turn on the tachyon accelerator. I can probably help much more with my Ice powers"** Caitlin reasoned

 **"You don't really need to have super speed. Kryptonians don't move nearly as fast as us. Even if the tachyon accelerator doesn't give you the speed, it will give you the power for the speed force in your cells which means you will have more power to attack with, right?"** Barry thought out loud

 **"I actually have no idea. I guess we can test that now while we help Kara. You good to go, Cisco?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"I am. I have opened a breach where you told me. Hope you guys arrive in time. Take care. I'll keep an eye on you and create a breach when you ask. Or you can just run back with the tachyon accelerators"** Cisco smiled. The two jumped through the breach and ran toward earth 38 to help their friend. The moment they arrived there they both got splitting headaches. Something was definitely wrong.

 **"Can you feel that, Cait?"** Barry asked.

 **"Yea. It's some sort of pulse that is creating cranial pressure. What the hell are those Kryptonians trying to do? Kill everyone on the planet?"** Caitlin replied.

 **"Can we stand it without having brain damage?"** Barry asked.

 **"I don't know, but we can vibrate to relieve the pressure. If we keep vibrating then we should be fine"** Caitlin responded. **"If we stop however and that signal is still on, we'll probably have 10 minutes before we have problems"**

 **"Let's go. Hope we're in time to help"** The two speedsters raced toward where the battle was taking place, as they arrived they activated their enhancers and felt a rush of energy. They saw that someone was trying to hit a downed Kara. Frost went ahead and encased Supergirl in a block of ice which broke on impact with the person that hit it, but absorbed the blow.

Barry was running like a bat out of hell, he turned and sped at over Mach 4 to hit the person that tried to hit Kara. He vibrated his fist as well increasing its mass, a trick that Harry taught him in between practice sessions. The hit was heard from a large distance, the sonic boom of his punch created a blast wave that knocked the other two combatants off their feet, forming a crater under his target's feet. The person Barry hit was sent flying a few meters back straight into the side of a hill leaving an indent.

 **"Hello, Kara. Did you miss us?"** Barry offered a hand to the downed Kara that could not believe who was helping her up.

 **"Barry? What are you doing here? No human can stand that signal so close, you need to run away or your heads will explode"** She yelled.

 **"And let you have all the fun? Definitely not why we came here"** Barry chuckled.

 **"We aren't fully human, remember? We can vibrate to get rid of the pressure"** Caitlin told her friend **"Is the blue one a human or an alien?"**

 **"Her name is Indigo and you could call her more like an android? Why?"** Kara asked.

 **"Because electrical current barely flows in absolute zero"** Frost smirked and started pouring the frost rays on the blue person slowing it but the android seemed to have internal systems that were heating it. Barry on the other hand was throwing lightning bolts at the man that was trying to speed toward him. He did manage to him once stunning him but one of them accidentally hit Frost. Barry almost screamed at the thought of hurting his beloved partner, but something else happened. The ice beams that were spewing out of her hands tripled in size.

 ** _"Are you all right?! Oh god! Sorry, I didn't want to hit you"_** He sounded worried in her head.

 ** _"I'm fine. I'm more than fine I think that lightning, your energy supercharged my Ice powers. This feels like such a rush"_** Caitlin exclaimed while the ice beams started to turn white and cold air started to create a fog. The intensity alone froze the android in its tracks. She became an ice cube even with her internal heating system.

 **"J'onn, take care of the extra. Frost's got her"** Kara yelled. The green alien went to the person that was trying to attack Kara hitting him straight in the face.

 **"Kara, up for a little game of kick the ice cube?"** Frost grinned. The blonde alien noticed that the blue woman was frozen solid, so she kicked it as hard as she could, breaking her into a lot of pieces scattering them in the wind. Frost then turned toward the only man that was left standing who started to shoot his heat beams at Kara. She began attacking him with her ice beams, the overcharge that she got from Barry seemed to last quite a bit.

 **"Who is this guy?"** Frost panted while she continued to pour on the cold

 **"My uncle"** Caitlin looked strangely at Kara

 **"Wow, you have an even more dysfunctional family than I had and that's saying something"** She chuckled.

The man was almost beating Kara at the heat beam game until Barry did something unexpected. He hit Caitlin again with lightning giving her even more power and then started to run around the man. The speed creating a funnel that was drawing the air out from the area. He had seen in his flashes that even a Kryptonian needs oxygen to use their powers.

 ** _"That's a good idea. If he can't breathe then he can't attack. But what made you think of that particular strategy?"_** Catlin asked Barry

 ** _"They might be aliens but they need to breathe right? I suspect they need oxygen to use their powers as well. We need oxygen to burn in our cells as well as a lot of energy for our bodies to produce velocity. These guys should burn oxygen the same way that we do. No oxygen, no reactant, no power"_** Barry smiled as he kicked up a storm running.

The faster Barry ran the weaker the man's beams got. J'onn was on the ground having been stabbed at the last moments notice by a piece of the android that somehow managed to get free, but which got smashed the moment it shifted out of the spike that impaled him. He couldn't help, but Frost and Supergirl were doing work. The attacker was now half frozen, gasping for air and the intensity in his heat beams was decreasing rapidly. Just enough for Kara to burn his eyes out with one last ditch effort. Just to be sure the man was completely out, Barry gifted him 2 lightning bolts to the chest.

The two speedsters stopped and sat on their asses taking a break, they kept vibrating though so the pressure would not kill them.

 **"Where is that pulse coming from that is giving us these headaches?"** Caitlin asked

 **"See that structure over there? The signal is from within that fortress and we can't stop it"** Kara answered looking rather tired.

 **"So that big fortress is the one emitting the signal. It's a spaceship is it not?"** Barry asked.

 **"Yes, but I don't think we can fly it out of here. Indigo would have already locked us out of the engine controls"** Kara added

 **"Wonder what would happen if I freeze the primary computer core"** Caitlin managed to stand up. Barry ran toward the ship and when he got close he realized he couldn't go through. The dense material was keeping him out.

 **"I don't know how you'll get in. I can't phase through it, I ran around the craft and didn't find any sort of entrances"** Barry returned and sat down next to her

 **"Come on, think! There should be a way to get rid of an oversized hunk of metal"** Caitlin slapped her forehead like she was the only one that had to come up with a solution.

 **"There is. I can fly it in space but I will more than likely die. That prison is huge, it will probably all the stored energy I have to get it off the ground"** Kara said with a weak smile.

 **"Caitlin, is it possible that if we run fast enough we can create a hurricane that will help Kara lift it?"** Barry asked.

 **"Maybe. If Kara can get it off the ground, after that we can run under it and provide some lift, but the brunt of the weight would still be on her"** Caitlin replied

 **"IF my powers fizzle out then I am no different than a normal human. A fall through the atmosphere would burn me up before I even reached the ground"** Kara told them

 **"That's why we came. Go throw that garbage into space and let yourself fall. Barry will catch you"** Caitlin told her blonde friend.

 **"Can Barry fly?"** Kara said surprised.

 **"No. But I can build him a pillar of ice to run on so that he can get to you. It's the same principle of how we managed to run up the building when we caught you that time. Go. We'll take care of you when you come back. That's why we jumped universes after all. You aren't going to die anytime soon, Supergirl"** Frost smiled at her

 **"Kara, take this** " Barry handed her the power cell that he had Cisco built **"It will give you a small recharge. I don't know if it's enough, but if you blow your powers it should charge you enough to make you at least invulnerable. Or at least I hope to god it will. Take it and when you need it press it to your skin and press the red button"**

 **"Thank you"** Kara flew toward the large craft and started to lift it up into the atmosphere. Beneath her, Barry who had the most energy of the two ran under the large structure providing some help. He didn't know how much but he hoped it was enough. The two speedsters starting feeling better as Supergirl took the structure out of the earth's gravity well. Their eyes were looking for where she would reenter. Kara barely managed to fly the alien prison out to a point that it would float safely out of the influence of the planet and felt her powers leave her. She took the small cell and pressed her to her neck pressing the button. She instantly felt the charge and her powers returning enough for her to be relatively safe while falling to earth. It wasn't enough to let he control her gravity field so Kara let herself fall straight down. Shooting two beams of white light to give the speedsters an idea where she would be.

Barry saw the flashes of heat vision and both he and Caitlin sped over. She began creating a large wide pillar of ice she could feel herself growing weaker.

 ** _"Barry, light me up. I'm running out of juice for the pillar"_** She told him

 ** _"Ok Cait, you sure you can take it? I don't want to hurt you"_** she nodded and Barry put her hand near her chest and throw a lightning bolt straight at her emblem. The ice pillar started to grow again reaching far up. Barry could see Kara falling and he started to run straight up the pillar managing to catch her in his arms bringing her to earth.

 **"Thank you for catching me"** Kara gave Barry a weak smile **"I'm drained. The cell helped immensely, it managed just in time to charge me so that my skin became impenetrable. It protected me from the friction on the way down, but in doing so it consumed almost all the charge that I had"** Caitlin was panting hard the tachyon accelerator was depleted and her energy was almost gone. Barry wasn't on his top either, he found out that throwing lightning at his fiancée was pretty taxing, besides running to help Kara lift the prison and create the updraft.

 **"Kara, did the tornado help? I couldn't see any sort of change from the ground. I just ran hoping that the updraft created by the twister will help you at least a bit"** Barry was curious if his efforts helped

 **"It did, it might not have looked like it, but the weight reduction created by you running actually helped more than you thought"** She smiled

 **"Now we know that running around in circles actually does help when the case calls for it"** Caitlin chuckled and Barry joined in

 **"J'onn, are you all right?"** Kara yelled at her alien friend

 **"I will be fine, I'm already regenerating. Who are these two?"** He asked coming over to them holding his gut.

 **"These are Flash and Frost. Friends from another universe"** J`onn had surprise all over his face before he morphed back into Hank Henshaw.

 **"Another universe?"** he asked with a surprised voice

 **"Yeah. We have a friend that can … has visions. He can also produce breaches to other earths. So when he saw Kara getting beaten we didn't think that much and hopped universes to come help. I'm Barry Allen, by the way"** the man explained. He was holding Caitlin in his arms and Kara was resting her head in his lap sitting on the ground visibly out of breath.

 **"We kind of already came here a while back, but by accident. We were testing how fast we could run, but in the moment we created a portal that brought us here. I'm Caitlin Snow"** the woman added

 **"Then you have my thanks, I don't know if we could have managed without you two. But how did your heads not explode, you are aliens too?"** He asked.

 **"No, we're humans, mutated humans, but still humans. We have super speed so we can vibrate. The vibrations attenuated the signal in our cranial cavities, so we didn't go boom"** Caitlin explained. Barry pulled a power bar from a hidden pocket in his suit.

 **"Rock paper scissors for who eats that fowl tasting burnt rubber with hints of asphalt bar so we can take these good people back to the DEO?"** Caitlin smiled

 **"Not this time, sweetie"** Barry ate the bar himself. His face changed completely almost turning green, but he got enough energy to start running people to the DEO. He took J`onn and left him in a medical bed, then Caitlin and put her in a bed as well. He stopped a bit to take a breath of air then took Kara in his arms and while running, she kissed him on the cheek.

 **"Thank you for coming to help. You took a large risk. I understand that. I'm pretty sure your friend didn't see the way the myriad wave was affecting everyone, if you'd have jumped in any closer to where we were you would have had serious issues. This was pretty much a suicide mission for me. You changed it to a win, you and Caitlin"** She told him

 **"We felt something was wrong the moment we entered this earth, hey billionaire super geniuses here"** Kara chuckled at his grandstanding **"Me and Cait can handle whatever life throws at us. As for coming to help, you are welcome. You told you back when we left that if we can help we will help. It wasn't the last time you'd see us. If you feel like it, you can return the favor. We might need a super powered blonde for a week or two. But don't fret that. Rest for now Kara, We can talk about that later when you aren't running on fumes and I'm not about 2 minutes away from blacking out"** he smiled at her with his usual goofy expression **"everything is going to be ok"** smile and rearranged her hair. Barry ran Kara to her _"high powered tanning bed"_ as she called it and before he managed to get himself into bed too, he blacked out, falling on the floor, literally scaring the people there.

A few hours had passed, Winn went and bought them a lot of pizza and donuts. He knew very well how much Kara ate and had an idea about Caitlin and Barry. The former had managed to get back her energy by eating 8 of the 30 pizzas that were brought in, then taking a seat between Kara's bed and the bed where the people from the DEO were monitoring Barry's vitals. She of course had her bracer lit up and was doing that herself. She had her mask down and her transformation had receded. It didn't make any sort of difference which form she had, the people here did not know who she was. A person walked into the room, it was J`onn, in the form of Hank.

 **"How are they doing?"** He asked.

 **"Kara's cells seem to be severely depleted. I cannot say for sure because there isn't anything that can show me an actual power level on her. She's sleeping and recharging. Barry should wake up soon, I've had the people here keep bringing me sucrose IV's for him"** Caitlin replied **"What are you doing up? Should you be walking after a blade went through your gut?"** she asked him frankly after that realizing that she had only met the person a few hours back. Caitlin wanted to apologize but the answer came sooner and took the form of a question.

 **"You`re a doctor. More to the point you`re his doctor, aren't you?"** Hank replied sitting on the chair next to Kara.

 **"We both are doctors and yes, we are both each other's personal physician if you can put it like that. Sorry I was blunt with you just now. I have no idea what you are and how your physiology works"** Caitlin stated bluntly

 **"He's the last of the Martians"** Kara spoke softly. She woke up but not feeling completely ok she decided to remain in bed.

 **"I see. So I guess that you do have more aliens here on this earth. We just deal with metahumans"** Caitlin told them.

 **"I am fine Dr. Snow. I have an accelerated rate of regeneration, the wound I took has almost completely healed. But thank you for asking"** the Martian put her worries to rest.

They heard ruffling and saw an unknown person with a strike team getting ready to enter the room. Caitlin didn't even turn and after that person was through, her hair changed to silver instantly and the door behind her was sealed by an ice wall, the two glass panes on either side of the door being covered by two more walls creating a dome that closed the entrance and sealed it from the soldiers that were outside. Two icicles grew out of the ground and were now pointed at the person's neck, only leaving a few millimeters between their jagged sharp edges and the person's skin.

 **"I do not like people with guns sneaking up on me while my friend and my fiancée are in bed resting. State your reason for barging in here, or lose your head"** Caitlin told the person that entered with a voice that surprised Kara. I was very cold and menacing, almost like the warm doctor that she had met before was a ruthless killer in disguise.

 **"I'm still not going to get used to that"** Kara smiled from the bed **"That is really cool. Also I had no idea you could sound so menacing, Caitlin"**

 **"When unknown persons come in here and threaten the person I love and my friends, let's just say that being menacing should be the last of that person's worries"** Frost replied still having her back turned at whoever came in

 **"Who are you and what are you doing here with my sister?"** The woman asked looking at J`onn.

 **"Really, Alex? Come in here with a strike team? Is that any way to thank the two people that helped us save the world and not get your head blown in?"** Kara stood up on the bed, but not getting off so that the light would still help her.

 **"It's fine, Kara. You know if I really put my mind to it nobody could shoot through or get in here as long as I'm standing. Should I take down the ice wall and the spikes?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"Yes, please. Alex, tell the men to stand down, they wouldn't even be able to pull the triggers and Caitlin here could murder them all with a hail of ice daggers. Be considerate about the normal humans and don't attack the person that could kill you all in the blink of an eye"** Kara told her sister. She winced, she looked at the woman in front of her whose hair now was completely silver. She noticed the steel blue eyes when she turned toward her with a stern look on her face. She did not peg her as someone who would be that dangerous and she was completely wrong, the ice walls and the two spikes that were now trained at her neck showed her the error of her ways, but if Kara trusted them and she saw J`onn chatting with the lady doctor like she was a friend then she could have nothing to worry about from the two.

 **"Ok, Have it your way, Kara"** she responded. Caitlin removed the spikes from her neck. She turned and the ice walls in front of her disappeared. She waved the men off then turned to see Caitlin reverting to her old form and turning back to the bed. She got up and took a look at the monitors that were attached to Kara then went back to her chair.

 **"How come you aren't checking Barry's vitals?"** Kara asked surprised **"Aren't you worried about him too?"**

 **"I don't need to look at your machines to do that. We have integrated sensors in our costumes. Those in turn are tied to this bracer that is part of our suits on each of us. They were initially designed for Barry to keep an eye on me while I was in a coma, but now their primary use is for us to monitor each other's vitals"** She said getting up and showing Kara the read outs on the display.

 **"Wow you guys really took making sure you`re healthy to a whole other level, didn't you?"** J`onn commented.

 **"Yes, we do have another doctor on the team, but she's a part time bomb expert as well and she works for the police so … she can't monitor us all the time. Just when we can't monitor each other for whatever reason. We aren't invulnerable, well I can be if I want, but its not something that I have on all the time, we do break bones and even with our enhanced healing they still need setting"** Caitlin explained then she realized that Barry's wrist wasn't looking like it should have. She didn't notice earlier because his hands were laid on his side and the angle made them hard to see, but now that she was walking around the medical ward she noticed.

 **"Do you guys have an X ray machine around here?"** She asked.

 **"I can do that"** Kara offered **"What do you need scanned? "**

 **"His wrist. It's not looking good"** Caitlin replied. Kara did what she asked and replied

 **"It was broken and not being reset now the bone has healed funny. You`re right"** she told Caitlin.

 **"Damn. Kara can you get up for a bit? I'm going to need you to break his wrist again. The fool, I'm sure he fought against Non with a broken hand and never said anything about it. He must have done it on the initial supersonic punch that he threw. Damn it Barry, you couldn't just sit it out for a few minutes could you?"** She was angry with the unconscious person in front of her.

 **"Yeah"** Kara got up and went over to Caitlin **"What exactly do you need me to do?"** she asked.

 **"I don't have your x ray vision so you'll have to break his wrist again. Then I'll reset it and hopefully this time it will heal properly"** the doctor told her.

 **"All right"** She popped Barry wrist like it was made of twigs **"Done".** Caitlin rushed and reset it putting it into a support cast.

 **"If you don't have a frame of reference then just x ray my hand and then his, but I assume since you`ve had this power for while you know how a normal hand should look"** Caitlin smiled at her.

 **"Yeah, I've had my share of human skeletons … It looks fine. It's broken but the position should be ok. How long will it take him to heal"** She asked.

 **"About 2 hours give or take"** The answer came

 **"Are you all right?"** Kara asked looking at the doctor who was rather worried.

 **"Yes, I'm fine. It happens to us all the time, but that doesn't mean we don't worry for one another"** She stated the obvious. Kara could see the worry on her face. Alex sat there and watched the exchange between the two that stood over the speedster.

 **"So, you've never actually told me who these two guys are, even if it's quite obvious that they are your friends and you trust them"** she asked her sister again.

 **"I have told you about them, except you didn't meet them. Flash and Frost?"** Kara told had told her sister what had happened two weeks prior.

 **"Oh. So these are the two that helped you against Livewire and Banshee. Nice to put a face to the name. I'm Alex Danvers"** she offered a hand to Caitlin which she shook

 **"Nice to meet you. I'm Caitlin Snow and this idiot with the broken hand is …"** she didn't manage to finish her sentence

 **"The idiot's name is Barry Allen. So this is your sister huh?"** Flash had awoken and realized that his hand was fixed. **"Crap, I broke it again didn't I?"** he uttered

 **"Of Course you did. The bone welded badly. I had Kara break it again so we could set it properly"** Caitlin gave him the stink eye. Kara went to him and gave him a hug

 **"Hey yourself. Welcome back to the world of the living, I know you said you were tired, but I didn't think that you would literally fall on your face"** Alex was pretty surprised at this. Kara usually would refrain herself from that kind of contact

 **"Kara… ouch?"** the Flash told her wincing. She let go realizing she was basically crushing him with her super strength.

 **"Super strength with banana level control?"** Caitlin smiled to Kara which blushed.

 **"No, I just do that when I'm happy or excited. Sorry, Barry"** she replied

 **"Don't forget when you're giddy about someone"** Alex grinned and Supergirl gave her a death glare **"Oops? Did I say that out loud?"** she grinned again. **"Thank you for the help you two"** Alex told the speedster couple.

 **"No problem. We saw, we came, we helped"** Barry grinned **"Is there any food here by any chance?"** he asked.

 **"Yeah I left you pizzas. We should go so you can get some energy into you. You consumed every ounce of it in your cells. Including what the power bar gave you"** Caitlin smiled.

 **"That last trip really took it out of me. I had no idea someone who looks so lean can actually be so heavy"** Barry grinned at Kara.

 **"Barry Allen, are you calling me fat?"** she pouted at him

 **"No, I'm calling you dense"** Barry laughed and started to run around at normal speed with Kara after him. Caitlin started to laugh, but for Alex it looked like the two were actually having fun teasing each other.

 **"That's not even remotely better, mister"** Kara started to chuckle

When they exited the medical area there were a lot of people present that were clapping and a few that were actually whistling. Kara didn't get why until she saw Barry kiss Caitlin. Everyone thanked the and after a bit they managed to get to the so called dining room. Hank had gone back to check on the damage. It was only the speedster couple with the alien and her sister.

 **"So what was that thing you needed help with?"** she asked.

 **"It's a speedster like us. Right now he is trapped on another earth and he is dying. Courtesy of an overdose of a drug he tried on himself. The problem is we don't know how fast. He could do some real damage and even if he is locked out of our earth, I know for a fact he can jump dimensions"** Barry told them

 **"You mean he might show up even here?"** Alex inquired

 **"Yes. That's why we need to put him in our containment cell. We know he's dead. No matter how much we try. But we would like him not to start terrorizing other universes while he passes"** Caitlin replied.

 **"How much time are we talking about of you being gone Kara?"** Alex looked at her sister.

 **"Anywhere between two days and 2 weeks. Seems that time flows the same here as it does on our earth. We don't know when he might strike and if he doesn't we will have to bait him somehow"** Barry told them

 **"Can you and our Martian friend handle the problems in National City for that long?"** the alien glanced at Alex

 **"Kara, there is nothing in this city we humans with the help of J`onn, can't handle by ourselves. Besides, these two literally helped you save the planet. You go and help them, we'll take care of things here"** Alex smiled.

 **"All right then. I guess that's settled, I'm coming back with you"** Supergirl smiled and then made a gasp at something that appeared in front of them

 **"Cisco? How are you here?"** Caitlin asked surprised. A ghostly figure of Cisco dawning his Vibe glasses and a smirk was standing in front of them

 **"I sincerely have no idea. I was trying to vibe you to see if you`re ok and now apparently this turned into a two way discussion"** the engineer said

 **"We need you to make us a breach to come back home. Can you do that?"** Barry requested of the engineer

 **"Sure, when?"** he replied

 **"Now would be good?"** Caitlin asked looking at Kara who nodded. A blue swirling vortex formed about a meter off the table they were sitting at, growing into a large opening.

 **"There, that should do the trick. You can come back when you want now"** He smiled. The two speedsters and Kara got up from the table to go toward the breach

 **"Take care and come back unharmed"** Alex smiled toward her sister.

 **"I will. Goodbye, Alex"** The three went through the breach which closed behind them. They were now standing in the pedestal room in Star Labs. Something Cisco built for himself to get in tune with his vibing and dimension breaching.

 **"Welcome to Star Labs, Supergirl"** both speedsters grinned


	39. Guest

**"Wow, this place looks amazing"** Kara looked around at all the tech. Barry took Kara and sped toward the Cortex with Caitlin right beside him. **"Oh. This building is large, isn't it?"**

 **"Yeah, it has a couple of levels underground, a speed lab, a training room, a prison for metahumans and people that work here day after day. Normal scientists who want to change the world"** Caitlin explained.

 **"Which have no idea that they are working above a prison for people that could kill them as fast as you could blink. So maybe don't tell them that"** Barry smiled and flashed out of his suit. Caitlin did the same. The only one who felt out of place was Kara who had left without any sort of clothing from her earth. Not even her glasses.

 **"It seems that I have the same problem that you guys had when you both came to my universe. Now I'm the one without money and civilian clothing"** She grinned.

 **"Oh, not a problem. We can take you shopping but until then I think I have some spare clothes here. Come with me"** Caitlin took her and they sped to the lockers. Cisco came back

 **"So did you manage to save the world? And the hottie?"** the engineer grinned. Barry face palmed remembering that Kara had super hearing.

 **"We did. It turns out that her uncle wanted to destroy the planet. Go figure"** the speedster said nonchalantly.

 **"So I guess she has a pretty dysfunctional family, huh?"** Cisco chuckled

 **"No, her earth family is fine. The ones from her home planet are the ones that are insane"** Barry smiled and looked at the engineer who had his mouth open. Caitlin and Kara sped back to the lab appearing behind Cisco. Caitlin's clothes seem to fit her pretty well, with a few exceptions, she had let her long blonde hair down with no glasses and was wearing a pencil skirt, a pair of heels and a blue blouse all topped off with a lab coat.

 **"Wow, Caitlin she looks like she actually belongs in a lab"** Barry grinned

 **"I could probably work here. Kryptonians are naturally intelligent as you know and some of the things I know could probably be researched here and I could help"** Kara replied.

 **"That will be your cover story then, you`re a new scientist that came from National City to help us with research for … something. You come up with what"** Caitlin told her.

 **"What's a Kryptonian?"** Cisco asked

 **"Oh, you guys didn't tell him about me?"** Kara asked with a grin on her face.

 **"We did since the last time we were there, but we might have left some things out. Besides, we were kind of in a hurry to save your butt from your deranged uncle, excuse us"** Barry gave her one of his winning smiles.

 **"I'm an alien. I wasn't born on earth, but on Krypton. A planet quite far away from here"** Kara told the engineer who's jaw literally fell to the ground **"Which explains the term, Kryptonian"**

 **"Kara, where's your costume?"** Caitlin asked. **"Do you still wear it under your clothes?"**

 **"Yea, it's not like I have a place to put it"** She smirked.

 **"Give it to Cisco. He can add tech to your suit like we have added to ours. I already have a few ideas of what we can add to yours. Don't worry, it won't be changed aesthetically"** Barry told the blonde.

 **"You know I don't really need tech. I'm indestructible"** she laughed.

 **"Moot point, we can add sensors that monitor much more than your health. Like for example how much power you still have in your cells. Which should help you to stop blowing out your powers and other things"** Caitlin told her

 **"You know those things haven't been invented yet? She is alien, it's not like we can use the sensors you two use which are based on the fact that you are mostly human"** Cisco looked at the blonde

 **"We know. We have ideas on how to make them work and with our ideas and your engineering, I think we can make something happen, don't you Cisco?"** Barry smiled knowing that after they helped Felicity, they could do almost anything if they put their thoughts to it.

 **"You really weren't kidding when you said geniuses, huh?"** Kara made a cute snort and gave out a laugh **"Who pays for all this anyway?"**

 **"Err ... we do?"** Barry rubbed his head. **"STAR labs, this facility and everything related is ours"**

 **"Oh, I see now, Billionaire geniuses wasn't a joke after all"** Kara said this time with a surprised face. **"I sincerely thought you were grandstanding when you told me that with a straight face"**

 **"Not by a longshot"** Caitlin added **"Give Cisco the suit, don't worry it will be here. We still need to get you some proper clothing"**

 **"You did say … indestructible just now, didn't you"** Cisco finally managed to speak

 **"Yea. I can also fly and run at supersonic speeds, I have freeze breath, heat vision, x-ray and telescopic vision. Also I do believe I heard you calling me a hottie. So, put super hearing there as well"** Kara grinned at the engineer who forgot to get flustered at the sheer power the person that was in front of him had. She sped out of her suit and gave it to Cisco.

 **"Do you have anything about it that you don't like?"** the engineer asked.

 **"No, I don't think so, why?"** Kara replied.

 **"Just asking, because I can also make you a new suit with the same material these two have. It will look like the old one, but if you had gripes about it, I can modify it as I make it as well"** Cisco told the blonde

 **"No the look is fine. I wouldn't even need the sensors and stuff, but …"** she didn't finish

 **"Yea you do. Right now you have no idea when your powers are going to blow. You at least need a warning when that happens so you don't get yourself killed. That's that"** Barry voiced. Kara could see that he wanted to get this done for her. Even if there wasn't anyone to monitor her vitals, he was looking out for her.

 **"Fine, you win. Just don't change the suit"** Kara waved defeated. Cisco smiled and left to his lab. Barry and Caitlin told Kara to sit down and asked for a few cells, maybe a hair and exposed them to sunlight. After a few hours of working and talking to the blonde, they managed to come up with plans for a sensor that could scan her cells and give a read out of the actual level.

 **"Cisco. We managed to find out how to read Kara's charge level. We're sending you plans and what to look for. Also, if you have time in the sleeve of her suit put her a bracer like we have covered, so she can access it whenever necessary"** Barry told the engineer.

 **"I can do better. Thanks to Ray's nanite technology I can turn part of the fabric on her suit to a display. I'm going to do the same to yours, but since she's the priority, I'll work on her suit first"** Cisco told them. **"It should take me the rest of the day, why don't you guys go home"**

 **"Cisco, don't you need food or some coffee?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"Well, I won't refuse if you bring me some"** The voice responded. Barry flashed to his lab and bought him two coffees and a pizza. Then came back to the cortex **"Thank you. I should have this ready by tomorrow. I love my job and my boss brings me food and coffee. What more could I want?"**

 **"Oh, shut up. Mr. Executive director. Take care and don't overwork yourself or else Bette might blow this lab up with us in it"** Caitlin told him

 **"I won't, but you know me, I love making costumes, even if in this case it's just remaking an old one"** he said his voice sounded excited.

 **"That's that. Let's go find you some clothes"** Kara left her lab coat with theirs and went out to the city. She enjoyed spending time with the speedsters and looking in the mirror she liked what she was seeing. No more derpy skirts, no more strange long blouses. It's like she could be someone else here, because she didn't have to hide her personality. It was a freedom that she didn't have for a long while. The got herself a black skirt that was a bit higher than knee level another skirt like Caitlin had but more to her measures and a few blouses. She also got some pajamas and shirts. She knew she had to sleep sometime. Two pairs of shoes completed the shopping trip and she wanted to get some fake glasses, but the two stopped her. They stopped for a coffee at Jitters and the Kara realized.

 **"Guys, I don't really have anywhere to spend the night"**

 **"It's fine. You can take our couch, I doubt that with your Kryptonian body you can get any aches and pains with it. It it's that bad then we can always get you a room at the hotel"** Barry told her.

 **"I'm fine with the couch. If not, I can always float and sleep in the air. Why didn't you let me get myself some glasses?"** She asked.

 **"If you want to go out as Supergirl here and we need help, you can wear a mask. I already told Cisco to make something like Caitlin has. You can take it with you back, or just leave it here, it's your choice, but I suggest you do wear it at least while we're in this universe. I don't think the glasses trick would work here"** Barry told her

 **"Those glasses weren't normal glasses. They contained some alien tech and functioned like a mini cloaking device, but since I forgot to actually take them with me, I guess I will be wearing a mask"** She chuckled. After they finished their coffees they flashed back at home where the two speedsters changed. Barry however forgot they had a guest and came out of the bedroom as always shirtless. Kara literally swallowed a few times to get her air back at the sight of his toned body.

 **"Barry! We have a guest. Put a shirt on for crying out loud"** Caitlin yelled from the shower. The speedster looked at himself then at Kara who was blushing furiously, then back at himself and in half a second he was back wearing a Frost T shirt.

 **"Oops, sorry about that. I usually don't wear one of those when I'm at home"** Caitlin came out of the shower with her hair wet and wearing dark shorts and a tank top. She looked at Kara and saw how red her cheeks were.

 **"You came out half naked again, didn't you?"** She chuckled.

 **"Yeah, but I went and got dressed pretty fast"** He tried to defend himself.

 **"I'm sure, that's why Kara is redder than my dress"** she started to laugh **"Shower's free, Kara"** The alien ran as fast as she could to the shower putting on some cold water to get her out of the red face situation she was in, after a bit she came back wearing a pair of white shorts and a flash t shirt.

 **"Aww, guess I know who's the favorite now between you and me, Cait"** Barry smirked.

 **"Of course you would be the favorite, I doubt Kara is into women"** she responded. Kara decided to break the weird conversation trail before it got out of control

 **"So, since we're here. What more can you tell me about this Zoom character?"** she inquired.

 **"Zoom is a serial killer from another earth. We call it Earth 2. The same thing that gave us our powers, the particle accelerator explosion, happened there too. He turned into a speedster as well but evil. As if that wasn't enough, he stole a drug that a doctor on his earth made, one that consumes his cells, but makes him about 5 times faster. He doesn't have the tachyon enhancer technology which means we're about as fast as him, but not quite"** Barry explained

 **"I see. But how would I be of any help. I can barely keep up with you, what would I do against a speedster that's even faster than you are?"** Kara asked.

 **"That's simple. You`re a new variable. He doesn't know you or about your powers. He has the habit of trying to kidnap or kill people we love in front of our eyes. So … we just have to give him the impression that Barry loves you and he will come for you. Once he does that, you can just punch him out of existence"** Caitlin told her.

 **"Doesn't he already know that you two are engaged?"** Kara looked at the couple a bit awkwardly.

 **"I have no idea. But if what we thought about Jay was true, he does know we're together"** Barry answered.

 **"Hmm, yeah, I don't know if he knows yet that I have ice powers. If he does, he will stay away from me. Which means he will grab the next powerless person in the room. Ms. Kara Danvers"** Caitlin looked at Supergirl

 **"So a basic Bait and switch?"** Kara voiced her thoughts **"He goes for you, you freeze him, he goes for me, I punch him. What if he goes for Barry?"** She asked.

 **"Kara, of course he will go for me first. I'm the bait. He wants my speed to cure himself. I'll draw him here, I need to make it look real if not he might figure out something is wrong"** Barry chuckled.

 **"So, let me get this straight, you`re going to let him beat you up, so you can run here and grab one of us. Whoever he grabs will be the surprise"** Kara wanted to be sure she got that right **"That's fine but you two are engaged to be married. How do you intend to make him believe that Barry loves me and not you? It's a bit strange"**

 **"Actually that's pretty easy too. All you have to do is act a bit whiny when Barry gets hit, concerned, show him that you care. If Barry shows any interest in you at all, then he'll go for it. With Jay gone, I think he might take his chances with someone that isn't super powered. Of course, he wouldn't know that"** Caitlin reminded her.

 **"So, he's a coward. He won't take on someone with powers unless they're weaker than him and if they aren't he'll only go for people that are close to you and can't defend themselves"** Kara concluded.

 **"Yes, that is an accurate description. Egomaniac and crazy. But in the end just a coward"** Barry replied.

 **"One more thing. If I use my powers while I'm here, wouldn't it be easy for him to make a connection between this identity and Supergirl?"** Kara asked.

 **"No. Reverb is dead"** Kara made a strange face **"Reverb is the duplicate of Cisco on that earth. He had the same powers. With him dead it means that they cannot see into this earth. We will get pinged if any other breaches open and if they do, you can just return to being Kara Danvers so avoid blowing your cover"** Caitlin explained to her.

 **"Let's get some rest. We can pick this up in the morning. Good night, Kara"** Barry told the blonde woman.

 **"Good night, Barry. Caitlin"** She jumped on the couch and covered herself with the blanket that was provided. It was surprisingly comfortable for a couch, she had no idea why the two told her that it would give her back aches.

 **"Good night. Sleep well"** Caitlin told her shutting down the lights and going to the bedroom.

The next morning the two speedsters were woken up by the smell of Coffee. Kara had woken up early and took a shower, changed the clothes she was wearing in the house and started making pancakes.

 **"This seems familiar"** Barry commented

 **"Déjà vu"** Caitlin smiled making Kara turn around.

 **"Good morning and why déjà vu?"** she asked.

 **"It seems that anyone that comes to stay overnight has something with pancakes. Or good friend Oliver stayed a few weeks back and we woke up to the same thing. Coffee and pancakes"** Barry smiled

 **"Oh. You don't like pancakes"** Kara looked a bit sad

 **"Are you serious? We love pancakes. I just thought it was funny to share"** Barry gave her one of his bright smiles

 **"Barry does the same when he wakes up earlier than me. He makes a mean omelet too. I think he picked that up from Oliver"** Caitlin quipped and took another pan to help Kara with the food. **"Barry, I think we might be…"** before she finished the sentence the speedster was back with a selection of small containers with all kinds of syrup **"out of syrup. Well not anymore"** she smiled.

 **"I didn't know what kind of syrup you liked Kara so I bought a few types"** Barry smiled.

 **"I like all of them"** she laughed and drowned the pancakes on her plate in it. The three finished their food and went to STAR Labs. Nobody had arrived yet since it was pretty early.

 **"Cisco, you still alive man? You didn't give yourself a stroke after all that coffee I hope"** Barry asked through the intercom in his bracer.

 **"Yeah. Still here. I'm almost done. After 6 coffees you find out that you can get anything done"** the voice sounded tired

 **"Ok, we'll be right there"** Caitlin answered and the three sped down to Cisco's lab.

 **"Wow you have definitively seen better days"** Kara looked at the engineer who had bags under his eyes and a tired demeanor about him.

 **"Don't pick on the Cisco. I made you a new suit"** he smiled

 **"What was wrong with the old one?"** she asked.

 **"Nothing, I just didn't want to cut it up to integrate the tech. It's still here after I got it from you yesterday, I just used the overall design, but what's under the hood … well, that's entirely different"** The engineer smiled he pointed toward a new suit that was on his bench **"I didn't want to modify the outer appearance so the large sensors are in the belt buckle. The smaller ones are under your shield. See how it fits. It should be fine since I copied the measurements from the old one"** Kara left for a moment and returned with her normal clothes on an arm and wearing the new suit.

 **"It's the same material as our speedsters use. Reinforced tri polymer composite, with a few added bonuses. Tap your left arm"** The engineer told the alien and she did so. The fabric on her half her left arm transformed into a screen. On it she could see read outs of her vitals and a bar **"Your vitals are there. You can watch them or someone else will provided you can hook them up into a satellite feed. What you do need to check is the bar at the bottom. The sensors that Barry and Caitlin came up with will continually scan your cells and update the readout as necessary. When it's close to 2% you should probably get out before you`re left powerless. The sensors have that error range because of a how fast I had to make them and reduce their size enough to work them in the suit. You did say you were bulletproof so I made the material shear proof. I also included some lead siding in the suit so you have protection against most forms of radiation. It is a bit heavier that your original, but it should help. You also have a mini cam which you can tie into any sort of software at the hide out or DEO. I rigged something on the roof for testing. Mind taking us there you two?"** Cisco told the speedsters. Before he finished all four were on the roof. **"Hit that dummy with your heat vision. As powerful as you can make it"** Cisco told Kara. She complied and after a few seconds the target disintegrated. She looked at the readout and she could see that the power level in her cells had dropped .2%

 **"This is amazing. If this is accurate then I will never blow my powers again. I'll know exactly how much I have in reserve. Thank you, guys, I know I said I didn't need it, but this is really useful"** Kara talked with awe on her face.

 **"Kara, mind running a little around the city? I need to show you what else we put on there. Can you get your power level down by about … 30 percent?"** Cisco inquired.

 **"Sure, but ... why?"**

 **"It's a surprise. Just go"** Cisco told her and she sped out of STAR. She came back after about 50 minutes of running at high speed, while the tree were enjoying to morning sun.

 **"There you go. I strained myself to be sure that I got all the power down. So ... what did you want to show me?"** Supergirl asked not sure why Cisco would have her blow almost a third of her stored energy running around the city.

 **"Time to go for some rays, do you see that red button that just popped up on your display?"**

 **"Yes. What's it for?"**

 **"Press it and find out"** the engineer smiled. Kara touched the button and her suit began changing. The cape was now see through, on her costume and on her boots small square shapes started to appear. Cisco made sure they did not appear in inappropriate places now that her skirt was translucent as well. **"Nano material can turn into different things. In this case, since I kind of figured out the power cell Barry had me build was for you, those translucent spots are solar radiation gatherers. They will capture as much as they can from around them and direct it at your skin. I had them remove the thermal radiation just in case so you wouldn't get burns. The cape and the skirt thought translucent act as a focus mechanism directing the light to your suit in small beams"** The engineer smiled.

 **"This is … wow"** Kara could feel the sun's rays even better than when she was in her own room at home wearing skimpy pajamas to get the maximum output out of the run, only the suit was anything, but skimpy. Thinking about it she realized it was way more than that. She could feel like she was high above. Sure, the suit was translucent, but not completely see-through. **"How did you come up with this?"** She looked at the display on her arm and saw that slowly but surely the solar gatherers were recharging her at a rate of about 1% per 30 seconds.

 **"I didn't, those two did after they studied your cells"** Cisco told her.

 **"When we asked for you to give us a small skin sample to make the sensors we also deduced the actual range of the solar spectrum that you need. Those specs wound up with Cisco along with the sensors and he thought to integrate them in your new suit"** Caitlin replied seeing the beautiful smile the blonde had on.

 **"The button will only appear after you have 70% or less power stored, we didn't have time to find out how your cells react to overcharging and until we find out, it's advisable to keep it like that. But we still have a skin sample so ... when we find out you can always come back and we can recode the parameters on the bracer"** Barry smiled at her. Kara was … taken aback by what the engineer had built for her. Even more that the two speedsters had taken time out of their day and made sure that all the sensors and even the way the energy was gathered now suited her and was the easiest way for her to get powered up again.

 **"Thank you guys. Seriously this is much more than I thought you'd be able to do for me. This technology is amazing, I don't have we have something like this on our earth"** She had a beautiful genuine smile on her face that showed the others how happy she was to have received that gift.

 **"Don't forget this"** Barry threw her the face mask which she took and put on her face. She could feel it molding to her facial structure and staying there without falling. Probably another trick that Cisco devised. Kara had no words for the three. She didn't think that a stranger, for the most part, and an alien would be so well received by them. It was strange, but she felt at home here, a feeling she had forgotten ever since she moved to National City and living alone most of the time.

 **"One thing, this suit is a bit bulkier than the one I wore because of the fabric. I don't think I can wear it under my clothes"** Kara said with a bit of a frown.

 **"Oh, yeah... here's the thing, you won't have to"** Barry approached her and put a necklace around her neck. It was simple, nothing fancy, but it had a pendant in the form of the symbol on her chest, except that it did not have any sort of design or inscription on it

 **"We thought not to make it obvious by putting your symbol on it"** Caitlin smiled.

 **"Now all you have to do is tap your belt buckle three times or use the "pack" button from the menu on the display. You can turn off the packing function from the buckle if you want in the menu of the bracer. It would be pretty awkward if you get hit in a battle 3 times and you end up naked on the battlefield. We should turn around, Barry"** He told his friend and they both turned with the back on the blonde woman. **"Whenever you`re ready"** Supergirl pressed her belt buckle as she was instructed, the suit turned into solid form and disappeared into the necklace. She was left in her panties wearing the necklace which produced a lot of surprise

 **"Where did it go and how do I get it back?"** Kara said a bit unnerved seeing that she was basically wearing nothing.

 **"Press the necklace twice"** Caitlin told her and when the alien executed that action the costume popped back out and she had it back on with her super speed **"It has the same system as our rings"** she pointed at the right hand middle finger **"Except our uses our lightning to grow and shrink and yours uses something that a friend of ours came up with that doesn't require the speed force to activate. So you see, you don't have to wear it under your clothes, you are more than fast enough to change from normal clothes to your costume without anyone getting a peek"** The blonde was stunned. She liked the new way she could get access to her costume and not having to wear it around anywhere.

 **"You decent?"** Barry asked.

 **"Yes, this is quite a nifty way to keep something that you need close to you. Thank you"** Kara loved the presents.

 **"Well, in the early days we had to run all the way from our apartment to here to get our costumes. As you might imagine it was quite a pain in the ass. Until Harry managed to crack the equations that brought us to your universe in the first place and put our suits in the rings we wear"** Caitlin told the alien which was very giddy. The four sped down to the lab when they finished with their tests. When they arrived as Kara put Cisco down, he inadvertently touched Barry's back remaining frozen.

 **"What's wrong with Cisco?"** Kara asked

 **"He's vibing. The visions that we told you about. It's strange because these days he really gets the outside the times he wears the glasses"** Caitlin responded to the blonde, while Cisco almost fell down. Kara got him and helped him sit upright while he was regaining his bearings.

 **"Whoa, I forgot how it feels when vibes come by themselves"** he commented.

 **"Cisco, what's wrong?"** Barry asked.

 **"I saw Felicity, she was in their apartment with a man that was attacking her. There was an elderly lady there, blonde like Felicity and Thea" the engineer told them**

 **"Do you have any idea when this is supposed to happen? Did you see any indication of the time?"** Caitlin inquired

 **"It's 4:30 now. The time I saw on the clock was 5:37. So I'm guessing it was from the future" Cisco managed to talk.**

 **"We have to get over there. Sorry, Kara. You don't mind us putting our plan a bit on hold?"** Barry asked the blond.

 **"This Felicity, is a good friend. I see you two are worried. I'm coming to help. Since I'm still here it's not like I'm going to sit here in STAR and not do anything"** Kara said

 **"Then we have to go. Want to ride with us or you want to fly?"** Caitlin asked,

 **"Timing might be of the essence. I'll ride with you"** She told the two.

 **"Rock, paper, scissors?"** Barry asked his fiancée

 **"No, you take her. That way when you slow down I can keep up with you without draining my own strength. My ice powers may be needed and you know how much those consume. Besides, didn't you say she was … dense? It might help you to boost your strength"** Caitlin told Barry. She looked at Kara and smirked. The alien started to blush.

 **"Keep your eyes closed, Kara. I don't know how your vision works, but I don't want to get motion sickness"** Barry told the blonde while he took her in his arms.

They ran out the door and as fast as they could toward Star City. Supergirl had her own new suit on and the mask. It was really comfortable, but none of them got any sort of clothes with them.

 **"You guys look really worried. Who is Felicity?"** Kara asked.

 **"Remember we told you about other heroes on our earth? Well Felicity is an old friend of ours. She is the girlfriend, or actually now I should say fiancée, of one of those heroes. The Green Arrow"** Barry explained

 **"Remember I told you we got struck by lightning which gave us our powers. What I left out at the time was the fact that I was in that coma for a lot longer than Barry and while he was trying to wake me up Felicity was one of the persons that came and took care of my … body care. Since this dork didn't do it out of embarrassment"** Caitlin explained. Kara looked at her and then at Barry quite surprised **_"So he is a gentleman as well, not like I'm surprised by that"_** the blonde thought to herself.

 **"I see. So she is indeed an old friend. Do we know what we will be up against?"** Supergirl questioned

 **"No. Just what we have from Cisco's vision. We're getting close"** They started to see the lights of Star City in the distance. Kara opened her eyes, but could not see anything around her, the world was a blur, her enhanced vision being able to make out certain things, but not much. However she did not have motion sickness and that was something that she was grateful for.


	40. Archer

**"We need a way to assess the situation. Kara can you see that far if we stop on the building across the street?"** Caitlin asked as they were running through the city taking a straight path toward Oliver's apartment.

 **"Yes. I just need a clear line of sight to wherever the apartment is and I can tell what we can expect inside, I could see through another building or two, but I don't know which of them might contain lead so a place with direct vision is … preferable"** Supergirl replied to the two speedsters. They stopped on a building just in front of Oliver's apartment. She used her vision to scan the apartment Caitlin showed her.

 **"There are 3 people. A blond woman, an older blond woman and a tall guy on the floor bleeding with dreadlocks. A man with white hair and white eyes with his hand extended toward the three. Then there is a guy in a green suit with a bow sneaking into from above the apartment and a girl with a red suit and a bow sneaking in from the second level"** She made a quick assessment of the position of the people.

 **"Ok, we need to take them out. I'll grab Donna. Kara you grab Felicity, the younger blonde. Barry, I think that's Curtis, you grab him, get him to the Arrow Cave and give him medical attention. He might be pretty badly injured. We will get back and stay with Oliver to help with whoever that white eyes stranger is"** Frost commented.

 **"All right, let's go. Call me if you need backup, I'll be there faster than you can say my name"** Barry commented.

The two speedsters and the alien got into the apartment. Oliver had already had an arrow trained at the person that had white hair, but he was not surprised when Felicity and Donna disappeared in a trail of Lightning. In a few seconds Supergirl and Frost were standing where they stood. Barry went straight to the Arrow cave with Curtis.

 **"Be careful this guy uses magic. He might hurt you really badly"** Oliver yelled. Frost threw a few ice daggers at him but he managed to stop them hurdling them back at Kara. They broke in contact with her skin. She smirked, but was quite surprised when the person started drawing her in with something that could only be described as telekinesis. He was careless however, his extended hand was soon pierced by an arrow that came from Speedy and two others launched from Oliver's bow.

 **"Oh ho. You brought friends"** the man smiled and started to draw Frost in this time. That was his mistake, in his attempt he left himself open from a direct punch that Kara gave him, making him fly out the door and into the stairwell. Frost was at where he fell a moment later but it seemed like he vanished in thin air. She went back to Oliver.

 **"Kara, take him and follow me. We're going to their lair"** Caitlin instructed. Supergirl grabbed the archer with ease and was running behind Frost, which had Speedy in her arms. In a few seconds they were back in the Arrow cave.

 **"Barry, how's Curtis?"** Felicity asked.

 **"He's fine. Just a minor concussion and a split lip. He'll live and he might have a headache for a few days. Kara can you X ray him see if there are any breaks or something that needs set?"** He asked. Kara gave him a once over.

 **"He's fine. Everything is in the right place"** She commented.

 **"Thanks, Barry"** Oliver commented **"Darhk could have really hurt Felicity and Donna, Where is Donna anyway?"**

 **"I left her upstairs in the club. She's resting. I don't think it would have been wise to let her in on this little secret"** Caitlin commented.

 **"I see you have a new friend and not a normal one at that"** Ollie smiled.

 **"Oh right, introductions"** Barry face palmed himself **"Kara, this is Felicity Smoak and that guy over there is Oliver Queen, also known as the Green Arrow. The person in the red suit is Speedy, her name is Thea and she's Oliver's sister. Guys this is Kara Danvers, also known on her earth as Supergirl"** Barry ended the introductions as Caitlin was looking after Curtis

 **"Her earth?"** Felicity asked with a surprised voice

 **"Long story left for another time. It will give you a headache"** Caitlin added, but continued **"Long story short? There are multiple dimensions and multiple earths, she is from one of those"**

 **"She must be something, those ice shards broke when they hit her and I know for a fact how hard and sharp those are"** Oliver touched his thigh reminiscing of the one that impaled him so long ago. Kara x rayed his leg and saw that the bone had a slight mark.

 **"More to the point, did you just ask Kara to x-ray Curtis?"** Felicity just realized what Barry asked the blonde.

 **"Oh, yeah. I have x ray vision"** Kara answered simply taking off her mask realizing that all of them took off their costumes and Oliver had his cowl down. It became pretty obvious that they all knew who each other were.

 **"She can fly and run at supersonic speeds, she's basically impenetrable, has super strength, heat vision, freeze breath and telescopic and microscopic vision. Did I forget anything, Kara?"** Barry told his friends. Usually Kara would be very guarded about revealing her powers to anyone, but this time she didn't mind at all. It probably had to do with the proud face Barry had while telling his friends about how powerful she was. Thea, Felicity and Oliver however were frozen. They thought Barry was kidding, however, seeing his straight face and since none of them were laughing they assumed everything to be true. Oliver saw himself at how fast she was and the ice did break on contact.

 **"The fact that I was born on another planet maybe?"** she grinned, throwing a little more fuel on the fire.

 **"Wait, did I hear that correctly?"** Felicity's eyes were wide as saucers.

 **"Yea. She's an alien. On her earth that's a common thing so, don't worry"** Caitlin replied.

 **"Um … do you come in peace?"** Felicity asked bluntly

 **"No I came to dominate the human race and kill every non believer in the great religion of the spaghetti monster"** Kara cracked and started to laugh followed by the two speedsters. Felicity realized the joke and started to laugh followed by Thea and Oliver was smirking.

 **"So how come you`re here, Kara?"** Thea asked.

 **"Well, I had a big fight with my uncle. He tried to destroy every human on my earth. These two appeared out of nowhere and helped me. I came to help them with the Zoom issue, but since this looked way more urgent … we raced over here to help you"** She answered truthfully.

 **"Well thank you for the assist. But this isn't over"** Oliver said with a grimace.

 **"Who was that guy, Oliver?"** Barry questioned his friend.

 **"Damien Darhk. The person that was behind all the crime in this City. He managed to get more of the mirakuru serum and we didn't call you to get us more antidote. He has about 30 super powered people and he wants to take it by force"** the archer answered.

 **"Wait … is this the guy that ordered you killed and because of who Felicity got her spine broken?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"Yes"** Oliver nodded. Kara could see the anger in both speedster's eyes. They were covered with lightning bolts that were dancing.

 **"Good… I've been itching to kick his ass ever since Felicity got shot"** Caitlin told the archer.

 **"How is she walking? A broken spine for a human means definitive paralysis"** Kara asked.

 **"Well, when these two found out I was shot they got a project from the STAR West laboratories. Which is another firm they own here in town. They worked for 4 days with Curtis here and Cisco and Tina McGee, a friend of theirs and made a chip that could be implanted in my back, with a power source that would help the impulses jump the broken area. It took me a while, but I managed to get back to walking without an aid and the doctors are saying that my back is healing. Even though the nerve connections are still severed"** Felicity told Supergirl. She confirmed what she was told when she looked at her back and saw the implants and her broken spine **"Which by the way, I still owe you a ton for giving me back my legs"** she added.

 **"You mean these two with a small team managed to make you walk again? That's … beyond amazing and in just 4 days? I wish we had that kind of technology on our earth or at least our own version of Barry Allen and Caitlin Snow"** Kara was baffled, but what she had said brought a hint of sadness to her face. She really had no idea how good the two speedsters were at science. She thought that their superhero lives would take over all their time but … apparently that wasn't the case.

 **"Curtis already had the plans. We just … perfected them and created a working prototype. You don't have to thank us, Felicity. You're a good friend and it's nothing you wouldn't do for us"** Barry smiled at the blonde.

 **"Well yea, if I was a billionaire and a genius at bioengineering"** the blonde gave them a beautiful smile

 **"Well enough about that, what can you tell us about Darhk, Oliver. You said he had some kind of magic?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"Yeah. He takes his power from an Idol. The idol gives him strength as long as people die. So he basically transforms death into power for himself"** the archer stated bluntly

 **"Wow that's pretty gnarly"** Kara commented. **"So what does he plan to do? Kill everyone on earth?"** the whole thing was getting pretty cliché from Kara's point of view.

 **"Pretty much. He tried to take control of a System called Rubicon which controls the nukes of all the allied nations. We shut that down but we don't know if that stopped him. If he does get control he might just nuke the whole planet to get his rush of power"** Felicity explained.

 **"So can we catch him? Or he's too powerful at this time?"** Barry asked with a bit of annoyance in his voice **"To be fair we do have Kara. She could probably just go in and punch him a few times till he blacks out"**

 **"No, getting close to him is not a good idea. If he touches you he can use some sort of spell to drain the life out of you. He tried to do it to me and almost killed me twice. Even if Kara isn't exactly human, I don't know how strong he is and she might die too"** Oliver told the group.

 **"I might be able to help with that"** Lyla entered the Arrow cave with Diggle beside her. **"We have an idea where the idol might be. Constantine tipped us to it. We can go in and destroy the idol and then you can probably take him. He will still be powerful but not invincible"**

 **"Also who's the new girl?"** Diggle asked. Oliver went to get him up to speed. Curtis was waking up, but Felicity didn't tell him who Flash and Frost were. Which came to him a real surprise.

 **"Mr. Allen? Dr. Snow?"** he asked looking over at the two in their costumes while they turned with their faces toward them **"I should have figured. Ever since I found out who the Arrow is, something was itching in the back of my mind. It was too much of a coincidence that Flash and Frost show up in our city the same days that you bought the company and after that when Felicity got shot"** He smiled

 **"Don't be so happy. Now you'll have to cover for us too not only for Felicity"** Barry grinned.

 **"Happily. I love the work you do as the heroes. But I came to respect the people after you took a week off, to come here and help me with the chip when Felicity was injured"** Curtis said with pride in his voice. Before it was impressive enough that two billionaires would drop everything to help their friend. Only now he realized that they left their city undefended to do that. That won another kind of respect and loyalty from the man. Kara was listening in the background. She was impressed by the way Barry and Caitlin treated their friends. In her world people that were rich were mostly jerks. Even if Cat Grant did help her a lot, Maxwell Lord was a total self-absorbed arrogant douche, Lena Luthor was different, but even her did not have the same demeanor as these two, they were different and in her mind the respect she had for them grew immensely, along with her unexplained attraction toward Barry.

 **"I was looking for a laptop that might contain the code that will help us close the access to Rubicon for good. It's in a building downtown at this address"** Felicity showed the two speedsters a dot on the screen. Barry left and came back with it only for an alert to start to blare in the Arrow Cave. Lyla grabbed her phone and made a call.

 **"Confirmed, 1543 bogeys in the air. All the silos over the west have fired their missiles"** She told the team.

 **"So… we're pretty much screwed"** Barry said with a strange smile.

 **"If I had more time I could write a virus from this laptop that would change the nukes azimuth to straight up. Sadly there is bird in the air from the closest air force base which means even if the world will end in 2 hours, we will die in 20 minutes"** Felicity gave a weak smile to the group.

 **"No we won't. I'll take care of the nuke. Felicity, stay here and do what you can, I'll make sure you guys don't blow up to kingdom come"** Kara said floating. Diggle gasped, Oliver had told him what the blonde can do but like the first time with the speedsters, seeing was indeed believing.

 **"Kara you sure?"** Caitlin asked. **"If that thing blows…"**

 **"I can take the hit. Back on my earth I managed to take out one of these. Just stand by to catch me In case it explodes in my face, I will more than likely blow my powers if it does and I would rather not break my neck on the asphalt"** she grinned. Diggle, Felicity and Thea were looking at the blonde like they were struck by one of Barry's lightning bolts. They couldn't believe what they were hearing. She could take a nuclear blast to the face and all that would happen to her is blow her powers. That was all, she was talking like that was something normal to her.

 **"Let's hope it doesn't, because even at high altitude a tactical nuke can produce enough fallout to kill this entire city"** Caitlin told Supergirl.

 **"I'm going with her. Caitlin, stay here in case Felicity needs something don't at super speed. Oliver, since you`re running for mayor I think you should be out there in the streets giving people at least a bit of hope. If we catch Darhk outside I'm going to come get you and Caitlin and we can show him a bit of humility. Lyla, have your men reached the supposed location of the idol that he's using to channel his powers?"** Barry asked. Lyla made a call the answered.

 **"They`re about to breach it now"** she answered swiftly.

 **"We all have coms, let us know how that works, because if you don't find the idol, until we do I think it's better to retreat instead of fighting Darhk. How long till that nuke hits Star City?"** the Flash asked.

 **"In 5 minutes it will be at the outskirts of the city Another 10 and it will be at the optimum blast point"** the answer came.

 **"Kara, we have to go. Stay safe everyone"** he told the group going to Caitlin and kissing her softly **"I know, I'll be careful"** he smiled to his fiancée who nodded.

 **"In case you can't stop it, call me"** Caitlin reminded him **. "I can probably turn it into an ice block that Kara can then throw into space"**

 **"Wait I totally forgot about that. Switch then, I'll stay with Felicity and render any assistance I can and you go with Kara. You'll be much more help with something that flies than I will"** Barry realized.

 **"Ok, so who's coming?"** Kara asked. Caitlin was next to her in a moment. They both nodded and Caitlin sped off while Supergirl took to the sky putting her mask back on. Barry sped a now changed Oliver in the city giving him a com to keep in his ear while he was out rallying the people and talking to them and then came back. Curtis was more than a bit surprised to see them pop in and out in a few seconds, but not as surprised as seeing a flying girl that came to help.

 **"So two speedsters, yeah … I expected that, but … a flying girl? Ok ... I'm not going to freak out"** Curtis exclaimed

 **"It's fine, she's also an alien and comes in peace"** Barry just hit the nail harder on the head making Curtis gawk. Felicity got to work on the azimuth hack with Barry lending as much help as possible.

Caitlin and Kara were already at the outskirts of the city and they could see the missile approaching. The alien went straight for it managing to grab onto the surface as it moved along. Caitlin was right under her.

 **"Can you do anything about it?"** the speedster asked.

 **"I can try to alter its trajectory, but messing with the guidance system might make it explode"** The answer came. She tried to pull the rocket to change the direction but as soon as she let go the guidance kicked in and it was on its way to Star City once more.

 **"Kara, rip the housing from the guidance system off and get me up there. I can freeze it and then you can try to deflect it. If the guidance system is shot then the nuke will just go straight until it finishes its fuel. When that happens you can just nudge it to go up"** Frost commented through the comm. Supergirl caught onto the rocket again and ripped the housing then going down to get her. After the guidance system was frozen Supergirl took Frost on her back and simply yanked the rocket which started to go straight up. The speedster had been correct, without the computer for guidance, it just went which way it could. Kara of course helped with a well positioned bump that sent the projectile hurdling straight into space.

 **"The cold up there should keep the guidance system from thawing. I hope"** Frost commented while they arrived on the ground.

 **"I'm keeping an eye on it. So far nothing's wrong and it's already passed 30 thousand meters. Do you have any idea what altitude is the safe zone at for a nuke to explode?"** Kara asked. Seeing Frost sigh and shake her head she called Felicity.

 **"Felicity, me and Frost managed to have that warhead not go straight at the city. Which is the minimum safe distance for a nuke to explode without major damage to the earth below?"**

 **"80 Km give or take. If it goes into outer space and explodes the besides the EMP we shouldn't feel anything and the radiation will scatter"** she heard through the comms.

 **"Can you track it?"** Caitlin asked

 **"Felicity is busy writing that azimuth hack, I'll do it. It's at 60 km now"** Barry's voice could be heard through the communicators. Kara and Frost returned to the Arrow cave running past the people that were cheering seeing the weapon go up into space. Oliver saluted them as a thank you.

 **"Barry, my strike team managed to destroy the idol. If you do take Darhk straight on be careful, we do not know how much energy he still has from it. But he should be considerably weaker. The bigger problems would be those mirakuru soldiers he created"** Lyla spoke while the speedster was watching the nuke that continued to go deeper into space.

 **"They won't be a problem. We got someone that lifted a one hundred million ton alien prison into space. I think we're good"** Caitlin commented as both of them got back. Lyla was speechless, the lean girl in front of her did not look that powerful at all.

 **"I would go back to get some of the antidote from STAR. It will work if they used the same formula. If he modified it then we won't know"** Barry told the group **"but I don't even remember if we have any on stock"**

 **"We do. I made some of it. At least 80 doses in case Oliver might have issues with them again"** Caitlin replied.

 **"And now you know why I love this woman"** Barry gave everyone a goofy smile **"I'll be back. Whatever advantage we have we should use. Call ahead and have Cisco meet me with the vials in the cortex"** He then sped off actually pushing himself. He did not activate the tachyon accelerator. He thought he might need the charge for the battle, but he didn't need to. He was already running at Mach 4. In less than 30 minutes he had made the trip to Central and back coming in with a few pizzas to replenish his energy **"There. We have that as well now"** He smiled.

 **"I'll put that in my arrows"** Oliver commented as he was back in the Arrow cave himself.

 **"Darhk is nowhere to be found. None of the surveillance we put up is getting any trace of him"** Felicity told them. **"We have about 30 minutes until the nukes start hitting. Lyla can you distribute this hack to everyone? I'm already running it"**

 **"I know how to smoke him out. He must have went into the byway. Monitor my comm. I will more than likely disappear for a bit and then when I reappear you will probably need to come after me"** Arrow said

 **"Ok Ollie, we'll be here. Where do you think the soldiers are?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"Probably in there with him, but I'm not sure. We'll see I guess"** he smiled and left. Felicity was monitoring his signal.

 **"Kara, how are you on power?"** Barry asked.

 **"It says about 75%"** the blonde answered. **"I need to get some sun. But it's night outside which kind of sucks"**

 **"I don't think you'll even need 30% with these guys. You should be fine"** Caitlin smiled

 **"Ok, Oliver's gone"** Felicity said **"Now we have to wait until he gets back"**

 **"What was he talking about a byway?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"It's something Constantine showed us. Magic in the world is very much real and there are confluence points like intersections on leylines. One of those intersections is somewhere here in Star City"** Felicity explained **"There he is"** she saw the GPS reappear on the map. The speedsters and Supergirl were already on it, they reached the spot and saw Oliver fight with Darhk while the soldiers were coming up to them.

 **"You take the soldiers, we need those disabled. I'll deal with Mr. Pompous over here"** Kara yelled at Oliver who immediately stepped aside as she flew toward Darhk. She encountered a wall of resistance, he was trying to keep her at bay but she punched through and hit him enough to make him fly a few meters and fall straight through a news stand. Oliver was hitting soldiers left and right. Frost ran through them leaving a few for the Flash that was running behind her. She froze their feet enough for them to not be able to move. Barry kept removing the ones that had been affected by Oliver's arrows and tying them on the sidewalk away from the battle.

 **"Oh you are quite strong, but you aren't strong enough"** Darhk shouted at Kara and sent a blast wave that threw her into a wall. Oliver immediately shot an arrow at him only to get it turned into a pile of ashes. He didn't get to gloat too much, he got hit from the back with one of Barry's supersonic punches that flung him straight toward Kara. Frost was still handling the 9 or so mirakuru soldiers that were left. Two of them were paralyzed by fog, one was downed with 2 icicles in his legs.

 **"Flash, a little charge up please?"** Frost smirked Kara looked at Barry that was preparing a large lightning bolt and then threw it at her. Her instinct was to run in front of the bolt but she abstained. Frost got hit in the back and suddenly her output grew exponentially. She was handling the Mirakuru soldiers with Ollie and Thea like a champ.

 **"You can do that?"** Kara asked really surprised.

 **"Yeah, remember with Non? I hit her by accident and that happened"** The Flash smiled and prepared two more bolts and threw them at Darhk. The villain got caught by surprise and flew a couple of feet stopping in the middle of the street. The damage he took was showing. A few arrows from Oliver almost hit their targets.

 **"Arrow, he's running out of juice. Can you take him? We need to finish those soldiers"** The Flash called out to his friend which immediately switched places and started flinging arrows at Darhk. Engaging in hand to hand combat with him. His powers were almost gone, but he still had his League of Assassins training. Oliver had that too so they were on par with each other. Supergirl started blasting the Mirakuru soldiers with her heat beams, Flash was hitting them with bolts of lightning and Frost, clad in her ice armor, was throwing ice blasts and icicles all around for everyone.

The fight kept dragging on but after about an hour all the soldiers were down and Oliver had managed to hurt Darhk enough to run an arrow through his chest. He didn't miss a second chance and ran the next one with his hand through his heart. The villain fell and people started cheering the heroes. The fight took out of them quite a bit more that they had initially predicted. They didn't fight mirakuru soldiers before and they were severely underestimated, but the heroes came out on top nonetheless. Lyla had managed to use Felicity's hack to send all the nukes out into space as well. The world was safe.

They returned to the Arrow Cave to take a breather. Kara was at 15%, she had use a lot of power to stand Darhk's initial psionic blasts. She knew now that magic could indeed hurt her if she wasn't careful. That was something she didn't think she could hear herself say. Magic was real and she could be hurt by it.

 **"That was … different"** Caitlin commented removing her mask and returning to normal. **"We knew those soldiers were strong but not that strong. I kept freezing them and they kept coming"**

 **"I'm hungry"** Barry stated bluntly **"Be right back"** He ran outside and brought 25 pizzas and 5 boxes of donuts and coffee all around for everyone.

 **"Kara that was amazing. I had no idea that you could hit so hard. Those soldiers were totally out matched"** Felicity was totally fangasming about her powers

 **"It took a lot out of me. He was really powerful at the start. Even if he only managed to throw me around, the impact of his blasts on my body were pretty significant. If Lyla didn't manage to destroy that totem I think he would have wiped the floor with us"** the Girl of Steel stated pretty bluntly

 **"I'm glad he didn't. Also, you haven't told us how you managed to know that Felicity was in trouble"** Oliver asked.

 **"Cisco had a vision. Don't ask. He saw Felicity getting attacked by Darhk about an hour before that attack actually happened. So ... we came as fast as we could"** Caitlin replied

 **"And now we have a prophet"** Diggle's life was becoming weirder and weirder

 **"Kara, just out of curiosity, why did you come to help. You didn't know us you had no ties with us and yet you followed these two into something that could potentially kill you"** Oliver asked pretty surprised.

 **"These two are my friends. Any friends of theirs are friends of mine. That is not something that can be discussed. I saw how worried they were for Felicity. I saw how they reacted when you mentioned who was to blame. The thing that convinced me was the fact that you knew your secret identities. I have lived with that on my earth for a while, I know how hard it is to find people to share a secret like that. That told me how close you were"** She told the archer which surprisingly enough for the two speedsters smiled.

 **"To be fair, Ollie is like Barry's big brother and grumpy uncle all at the same time"** Caitlin laughed At the same time an arrow flow at her face which she caught easily enough to see that it wasn't even sharpened it had a small suction cup at the end. **"Really, Ollie?"** Frost smiled

 **"I told Barry to not call me grumpy, same to you Caitlin. Except while I wanted to train him and those arrows were the real thing when I shot at him, I really don't want to hurt you. Unless I want someone to drag me a few hundred miles on my ass to Central City"** he looked at Barry and smirked.

 **"Don't forget put salt on the wounds after and give it a thorough rub"** Barry completed prompting Oliver to give him a **" _Really?!"_** look **"What, you'd follow me to the ends of the earth if I'd hurt Felicity"**

 **"That's true"** he smirked

 **"Thank you"** Felicity went and gave Kara a large hug **"And all of you as well. For … more things that one"** she quipped knowing the two would understand. The three stuffed themselves to their heart's content and nobody was even saying anything. Kara was surprised, in her world the word alien could be pretty heavy to have over your head, but at first with Caitlin, Barry and Cisco and now with Team Arrow, nobody actually cared about her being from another world. The hug that Felicity gave her was something she only got from a few people back on her earth, and those were people she had known for quite a while and were familiar to her and used to her, but this was a woman that had only met her today.

Kara on the other hand looked at Barry and Oliver. They really acted like brothers even though they were nothing alike. Teasing each other and making fun of each other but when push came to shove they saw how they fought. It was something that she had with Alex, the training, the banter, the bad jokes, the teasing. It was weird, but she felt as much home with these people she barely knew as she would with Alex and it was frightening to her but also calming. She finished her donuts and a few pizzas and looked back at the sensor that was on her armlet, she was back up at 55%. She felt much better after eating and now had no problem with the new suit. She loved knowing when she would be out of power or how much she had in reserve. Barry was right, yet again. **" _It's like he knows what I would like and what I wouldn't. It's so strange"_** She thought to herself.

 **"If you need help with that speedster demon of yours, now that Darhk is gone, we can always come lend a hand"** Oliver told him

 **"As much as I would like to accept, this guy is way too fast. He can't really kill Caitlin, she can freeze him. Kara as you have seen can literally break him in two if needed. And I'm the bait anyway. I wouldn't want to put you in danger"** Barry spoke with a heavy heart.

 **"You know in the end it's our decision, not yours, Barry"** Felicity told him.

 **"But we understand. Nonetheless if what you`re planning doesn't go through. You know where we are"** Oliver replied. He saw the way Barry had thought his last reply and he knew that everyone was in danger of dying if the Flash only regarded himself as bait. So he decided not to push needlessly.

 **"Thank you everyone"** Barry told them **"Kara, do you have enough energy to take us flying for a bit?"**

 **"Sure, but why? We would get home way faster if you ran"** She replied

 **"We know, but we would like to see what flying is like not when you try to freeze a nuke"** Caitlin smirked. **"If you run out of power we will run"** Kara understood and the three went up into the air while Team Arrow looked at them

 **"So two people that can run faster than sound and an alien girl that can fly, which is from another earth and I'm saying all of that like it's normal"** Diggle commented

 **"Our lives have never been normal, Dig"** Oliver smirked.

 **"Normal is boring. I would take those three any day"** Felicity agreed


	41. Demon

Barry and Caitlin came back with Kara to STAR Labs. They enjoyed their round of free flying with the blonde. When her power went down to about 30 they decided to just run back so she would get some rest. It was already late so they went straight to bed. They did enjoy the trip, but it took a bit longer than anticipated. Cisco told them he would be in a bit later, he was tired from the day before when he rebuilt Kara's costume from the ground up. It seemed strange to the couple that he would actually tell them that, besides after all the work it wasn't like they were going to call him to be on call at 8 AM.

Next morning all of them woke up rather late deciding to stay in bed. It was a luxury the two speedsters rarely afforded. When they finally got up the three decided to skip the indoor breakfast and just head to Jitters for Coffee and donuts. While they were talking they received a message from Cisco. _"You need to get here fast"_ That was all he said but they got the urgency of the situation. They finished their breakfast and coffees and sped to the lab.

 **"What's the reason for the message, Cisco"** Barry asked as they stopped in the cortex.

 **"Man, I had a vibe. A real bad one. I saw earth two getting ripped in pieces"** He replied **"I really don't like seeing the apocalypse you know?"**

 **"What did you actually see? I mean sure the apocalypse is good enough. But can you give us some other kind of hint?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"I saw their earth, I know that because it had that large train track outside the labs and well the blimps were a dead giveaway as well. Literally split in two. In the distance there was something similar to what we had here. A blue Vortex that was opening. Not sure if it was a breach or just a singularity"** The engineer told them.

 **"Would Zoom be so stupid as to destroy his own world? I don't think so. Something else must be up with all that. Anything else that could help?"** Barry commented.

 **"I think I saw Zoom. But he wasn't on earth two. He was hiding somewhere here. I didn't see the location where he was, it was too blurry to get enough information and apparently he can open breaches as well"** Cisco added

 **"Is our breach detection system still active?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"Of Course. We kind of figured Zoom could open his own breaches because of his speed. But we didn't get any sort of ping"** the reply came.

 **"Which means the vibe you had must be from the future. I suspect he might be looking for a place to lay low first, then activate whatever he wants to do on earth 2"** Barry thought out loud.

 **"If that is true then now we know he will come here. But the question is when and what will he be after. If he wants to lay low then I'm nearly sure that he won't come here to attack you"** Kara reasoned.

 **"No. He won't. Kara is right. Unless…"** Barry started

 **"We find out where he will open the breach and we attack him first. Or until Barry does. I suspect you still want me to stay behind?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"No, we have been to earth two already and you have showed at least the fact that you`re a speedster, one beautiful lady that to him is powerless and I care very much about is enough of a bullseye for him"** Barry smiled **"Too bad that lady is anything but powerless"** he snickered. Kara looked at Barry and started to blush. He called her beautiful, she knew that Barry would never see her that way, but he did notice her and that made her happy. It was the most she could hope for at this moment in time, for the man she started to get really close to, loved another. That saddened her and made her happy at the same time. Sad because she would never have him and happy because he found someone that he loves and loved him.

 **"Kara?"** Caitlin watched her facial expressions **"Are you all right? You seem a bit out of it"**

 **"Yeah, sorry. My mind was wandering. So all we have to do basically at this point is … wait?"** she responded.

 **"Yes. I don't think there's anything we can do short of going ourselves to earth 2 to provoke Zoom to cross over"** Caitlin spoke

 **"That might be a better alternative. If we wait, Zoom might already start the destruction of earth 2 and then jump here to save himself"** Barry thought about it.

 **"What's with Earth 2?"** Harry was just walking in the cortex with Jesse.

 **"Cisco had a vision of it being destroyed. We were going to call you to talk but I see you managed to make your way here regardless"** Barry grinned.

 **"That would be bad. I mean it's our home and we might want to go back at one point we can't be sitting here like freeloaders"** Harry stated and Jesse looked saddened by that statement.

 **"Then don't be freeloaders. We can hire you and you can continue to do work just like you did on earth two. You know all you have to do is ask, Harry"** Caitlin stated

 **"I wouldn't mind it, but I would like to go back home at some point"** he told them

 **"We know you do. Everyone wants to go back home some time or another, especially if they miss it. Just letting you know you're always welcomed here"** Barry replied

 **"Even if you`re a dick"** Cisco grinned and Harry smirked in reply

 **"I found something in Jay's lab that might explain how earth two gets destroyed though. Come with me, I'll show you"** Harry told the group. On the side of the now empty lab was a strange model of a machine that looked strangely like a wormhole generator.

 **"This is a power amplifier with a highly dense rotating core that if weaponized could create the sort of destruction that Cisco described. If Zoom can produce enough power for this sort of machine then potentially could destroy Earth two"** Harry concluded

 **"What happens if it gets even more power than that?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"It could potentially destroy more than a universe. Try … all of them"** he answered with quite a worried face.

 **"Then that settles it. We need to act now before he has any time to build that machine. Harry, can you build something that can detect the energy signature of a device of that kind?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"I don't think we need to do that. Without Zoom as a power source it's just a hunk of junk. Nobody would be able to create enough energy to even make it start up"** the reply came.

 **"That's not what I asked you for it, Harry. I suspect we don't have time to go all over earth two and find Zoom and where he is building that machine. We need that detection device to go to him. If he's not there then we just destroy the damn thing. That will make him come running"** Barry told Wells.

 **"Yeah, I can make you something rather fast. I know how that was supposed to work, I wanted to use the design in boosting my particle accelerators power"** He replied.

 **"Good, go to it. Jesse, help him, some speed never hurts** " Barry commented. The speed force had settled in Jesse's system. She was now a speedster like them. So was Wally. He didn't get along with the idea that his family was dead, although they had no idea about the other Iris. He managed to blend in the West household just like he was a part of it. He came into his powers as well, but he and Jesse did not have much training, so Joe didn't really want to let him out into the streets for now. After Harry left to his lab, the breach alerts started blaring.

 **"Barry, a passage just opened and closed downtown. From the readings the breach only stayed open for less than a few seconds"** Cisco told him.

 **"Zoom?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"No idea. But you should go check it out"** Cisco told the two

 **"I'll stay here, in case he decided to attack STAR"** Kara told them and got her _"unsuspecting powerless lab assistant"_ disguise on.

 **"Good call"** The two sped out to the place where the breach appeared but there was nothing to be found. The breach had closed as soon as it was opened, it was only because they had the detection system in place that they even caught it.

 **"Barry, Zoom's here at STAR. You were right, this is the first place he came. He has Kara. You need to come back here immediately"** Cisco told him. The two speedsters raced back to the labs as soon as they could. Barry entered the cortex to find zoom, but Caitlin stayed behind and changed. They had no clue if Zoom had any idea about her powers, but they would find out after this.

 **"Hello, Barry"** Zoom greeted the Flash while holding on tightly to Kara.

 **"Hunter, you should drop the mask. It's not like we don't know who you are"** Barry told him as Caitlin entered the lab and faked a gasp remaining stuck at the door.

 **"My, my, the delightful doctor Snow has decided to join us"** Zoom removed his mask.

 **"Cut the crap Jay, or Hunter, or whatever your name is. What do you want?"** she said with a grimaced face.

 **"Simple. I want Barry's speed and beside that I want to meet that second speedster that was in my hideout that day. Give me what I want or this one dies"** He started to choke Kara. She played her part very well, feeling the hold on her magnify she started to pant heavily. In reality the power he put into his stranglehold wasn't even enough to make her lose her stance.

 **"Hunter, tell me. Why are you such a coward?"** Barry asked him pretty bluntly **"Out of the people here, instead of battling the one who can stand up to you, you take prisoner the powerless ones? What, are you afraid you can't beat me in a fair fight?"** Zoom's eyes turned black

 **"I want your speed and I won't stop at anything to get what I want. Who cares if the people here can't do anything about it? My goals don't care about your hostages. Give me what I want or this one dies and the next is going to be her if you try to play with me"** Zoom was very clear about his intentions starting to vibrate his hand that was coming perilously close to Kara's back. Barry looked at her and nodded.

 **"Too bad, Hunter. You picked the wrong person to screw around with. Kara, if you please"** Barry smiled at the blonde. That's all she needed, she grabbed the arm that was choking her and without much of a thought broke it in two places. Zoom had no idea of the power the seemingly innocent blonde, that he decided to use as a hostage, had. Without much fuss she grabbed him by the broken hand and threw him at a wall. The impact made Zoom leave quite a mark in the hard surface. He did manage to wake up rather fast, but when he tried to move Caitlin was already in front of him. Frost beams came out of her hand pinning him completely to the wall as her hair turned white and her eyes silver blue, large layers of ice growing on his body. He tried to vibrate to get out of the ice, but he realized his speed was being dampened.

 **"I see. You are the second speedster. The seemingly innocent and beautiful Dr. Snow who was hiding in front of me all this time"** he growled at Caitlin who gave him a smirk **"It doesn't matter. I have stopped counting my successes in victims. I move on to the number of earths and their speedsters that I destroy. Earth two is going to be a memory in a couple of hours, with everyone there dying. Ah, revenge is …wonderful"**

 **"Yes, we kind of figured that "Jay" wasn't someone that was worthy of our trust. So I never used my powers with him around, but as you can see I'm no mere speedster. I have other … skills that can come in handy especially against people like you"** Caitlin replied.

 **"What about her?"** Hunter motioned at the blonde woman that had just thrown him into a wall with the force of a truck.

 **"She's just … super"** Caitlin quipped making Kara chuckle.

 **"Cisco, did you prepare that special cell in the pipeline for Zoom as we asked?"** Barry asked the engineer

 **"Yes. You can take him there. Then meet me in the pedestal room. I vibed again"** he replied.

The speedsters shoved Zoom in the cell that was designed to hold him. The nanites would keep him powerless and the cell itself would absorb his speed if he tried to use it, thanks to something Harry had designed.

 **"You`re done, Hunter. You can't get out of that cell. You can sit there until you wither into nothing"** Barry told him and the villain had a surprised face **"What? We realized you overdosed yourself with Velocity since a while back. We know you need speed force for the cells in your body to regenerate and not dissolve. The extent of the damage makes them regenerate with the use of the Speed Force, as long as you have it. But you won't for long"** Caitlin told him with anger in her eyes.

 **"Aren't you supposed to be heroes? By doing this you are condemning me to death"** Zoom replied with anger on his face.

 **"We aren't condemning you to anything. It's something you have done to yourself a long time ago. We're just stopping you from killing more innocent people. Goodbye, Hunter. I can't say it was nice knowing you. Rest in peace"** Barry told him with a cold face. The two sped back to the pedestal room leaving the villain to shout and hit the walls of the cell in anger. It was useless, with the bots sapping his energy and the cell sapping his speed he had no way to get out by phasing through the glass, but he still tried. The containment unit was doing its job. When they got there they were met by a worried Cisco and Harry who had brought Jesse along. Kara was there as well.

 **"Earth two still gets blown up. The madman activated the device with a power cell that he had prepared. It contains the energy required to power up that infernal contraption. We suspect he syphoned off the energy that he was producing"** Cisco told them.

 **"Here, this device should detect the energy waves that are produced as the power amplifier charges. You should be able to use it in your search"** Harry replied handing them something that looked like a Geiger counter.

 **"Please, make sure that our Earth is safe"** Jesse asked them almost in tears **"Even if we don't go back, that was still my home"**

 **"Don't worry, we will"** Caitlin smiled toward the girl **"So, shall we?"** she looked at Barry. Beside him Kara was already in her suit. Barry looked at her rather weird.

 **"What? As long as I'm here we're a team. I'm going and don't try to tell me otherwise"** she gave them a bright smile. Cisco created a breach. Barry had asked him to make sure that it opened in the CSI lab at the alternate CCPD. They stepped through the breach and found themselves face to face with their doppelgangers which were working at the lab. Barry flashed to the door and closed it.

 **"Hello, you two"** Caitlin greeted

 **"Hello yourselves, what are you doing here? We thought after you came to rescue your friend we wouldn't be seeing you again"** Barry's double smiled.

 **"Yeah. We have a problem. While Zoom was taking a sabbatical form terrorizing your world he put together something powerful enough to destroy it. That's why we had to come back"** Barry responded to his double

 **"Did you ask Harry how much range does this have?"** Kara questioned

 **"No, why?"** the answer came immediately

 **"I'm going to fly straight up and see if I can't catch a break. We don't know how much time we have, so we need to get this moving as fast as possible"** Kara told the two. The speedsters nodded. She opened a window and flew in the sky while their doubles had their jaws firmly planted into the ground. They have seen metahumans that flew. Like death Storm, but she didn't look at all modified from the outside, she looked like a normal human being, and yet, she was not. That was something that baffled the doubles.

 **"She can fly?"** Caitlin's double asked bluntly

 **"Yeah and a whole lot of other stuff, but that's not important right now. We don't know how much time we have before this planet goes kaput so we'd better start searching"** Caitlin replied sitting at one of the free consoles.

 **"What can we do?"** their doubles asked.

 **"Zoom's name was Hunter Zolomon. He also impersonated your Flash, Jay Garrick. See if you can track down any sort of financials on those two. Or any sort of aliases that Zolomon might have used before when he was a murderer. You should have access to those files"** Barry told them

 **"Barry, the model of the machine in the lab that Harry showed us it had a sort of shield, something like Cisco tried to make back when we were trying to capture Thawne. If it's working that means speedsters won't be able to do anything against the machine"** she told her fiancée.

 **"That sicko really thought about everything didn't he. Wait, why do we care? Sure we're speedsters, but Kara isn't. She can probably one punch that contraption if she puts her mind to it"** Barry replied with a smirk.

 **"Yea, but what's to say that Hunter didn't think about that as well. Besides she has to find it first, which is the real problem here. The resonance that specific type of energy field gives off could be masking the other one that Kara is scanning for"** Caitlin replied. They were keeping their comms open so Kara could hear the entire conversation

 **"So flying over the city with this detector might not yield anything?"** they heard a voice through the comms.

 **"It should, the problem is the masking will severely reduce the output of the machine that can be detected from the outside. I don't know by how much, I didn't see the plans for it just what I managed to take in when I saw the model"** Caitlin replied.

 **"We need Cisco and Harry. We don't know enough about the superconductor force field trap to make something to detect it"** Barry tried to think how they would do that. Strangely enough, a blue breach opened in the same place theirs did and Harry and Cisco came out of it, along with Jesse and Wally.

 **"I was keeping an eye on you through my vibes. So when I heard you needed help, we came to help"** Cisco smirked closing the breach behind him.

 **"Jesse, Wally? What are you two doing here?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"We can help with the search. We might not be as fast as you two, but at least we can help in searching through the city. We know it like the back of our hand"** Jesse offered and Wally agreed.

 **"Ok, you two scour the city from ground level. You got communicators?"** Barry asked.

 **"Yes, Cisco made two of them for us. We also borrowed some of that liquid polymer to coat our shoes with it, just in case"** Wally replied. Barry nodded and the two junior speedsters were out the door in two flashes of lightning.

 **"Just how many people like you are there?"** Double Barry asked visibly surprised at the appearance of another two people that could move faster than the speed of sound.

 **"These two are from your world. Zoom tried to recreate the particle accelerator experiment to give him more speed, but in doing so those two were exposed to the radiation much like he was. They became speedsters"** Caitlin replied.

 **"I need to go back to STAR Labs with Harry. I know what you two need. It's going to take a bit to make. I heard about the force field that Zoom incorporated in that design. I can't believe I was so blind to not see it at the first pass"** Cisco admonished himself.

 **"I'll take them to the lab"** Barry offered and in three seconds flat he was back the two people gone from where they stood.

 **"Kara, how far down into the earth can you see if you focus your x ray vision?"** Caitlin asked Supergirl

 **"About 20 meters, give or take provided there's no lead ore or actual lead anywhere, why?"** the reply came through the comm.

 **"While Jesse and Wally are looking through the city, go back to Zoom's hideout and look around that whole area the device might not even be in the city, it could be out there. I'm sending you the coordinates right now"** Caitlin replied.

 **"Jesse, you meet with Kara and get the detector from her. With your speed you can canvas the city fast enough to give us an idea"** Barry told the girl

 **"Won't I need the detector?"** Kara asked through the comms

 **"No, we're sending you out on recon. We don't know how far the detector works, but you being able to look through the ground is invaluable, because we already know a few places where Zoom was hanging out thanks to the other Barry and Caitlin. You`re going to scout those out"** Caitlin replied.

 **"Understood. Send the locations to my display. I'll tell you when I finish searching them and if I found anything"** Supergirl agreed

 **"See through the ground?"** the two doubles asked at the same time

 **"Yeah, x ray vision. One of the many powers she has"** the answer came giving them even more reasons to be surprised.

 **"Barry, how much range would you need on the detector for the EM field of the force field?"** a voice came from the comms.

 **"As large as you can make it, without having the detection device itself be 200 kilos. Even though Kara wouldn't have a problem with that either"** the speedster replied prompting another weird look from the doubles.

 **"Super strength"** Caitlin cleared that up before they had to ask. The doubles were looking at one another in awe. These guys had a tight knit team that they could count on. For them it was always count on one another and seeing even Harrison Wells from their earth being part of this team along with his daughter was something that was amazing. They knew the man as a recluse and as a pompous genius that wouldn't work with anyone, yet somehow their other selves managed to include him in a team that functioned like clockwork.

 **"Kara, your power level is dropping. I suggest you turn on the collectors and take a 10 minute break above the clouds. That should bring you to full power again"** Barry told the blonde through the comms.

 **"How do you know?"** Kara asked surprised.

 **"Your bracer has the same type of connection ours has. I just hacked into it to keep an eye on you"** Barry told her nonchalantly

 **"Ok. Will do. Going for a recharge run"** The blonde replied. The happiness she could feel right now was not something that was often felt. Nobody at the DEO even cared enough to monitor her vitals or even warn her that she was running out of power. It took two strange speedsters from another universe to make her feel more than a weapon, as most of her colleagues except Alex, Winn and J`onn, did. Furthermore the concern that Barry was showing for her wellbeing was touching. He took the time to hack into her bracer and told her demandingly to go recharge. It was obvious he cared a lot for the blonde and not only him but Caitlin too. Even though the woman noticed from a mile that she had a crush on Barry, she never once acted out in jealousy or in spite. She considered her a friend, not a rival. Strangely enough, even after just meeting them for a few times, she considered the two some of her best friends. She turned her solar fabric on and floated above the clouds until she could see that the power bar was full then turned it off and went back to the ground at high speed to continue her search.

 **"Jesse? Wally? Did you find anything?"** Caitlin asked them through the comms.

 **"Nothing. Either the device is well shielded or it's not in the city. What do we do now?"** Wally asked.

 **"Go back to STAR Labs, see if Cisco and Harry need any sort of help and give it to them as much as you can. We're still looking for patterns in the way the sightings appeared since we were last here. Maybe they can give us a clue. Hand the detector back to Kara, just in case she bumps into some lead deposits or other underground structures she can't see into"** Barry replied to them swiftly and sternly.

The other Barry stood there in awe. In front of his eyes another version of himself was acting more like a leader than he could ever though he could be. He was always the shy non-confrontational type of person that even was afraid to ask the one he loved for her hand in marriage, even if it was obvious she would say yes. After their first encounter he had been carrying the engagement ring in his pocket waiting for the right time to ask his Caitlin to marry him. But he never thought the time to be right, he was afraid, but of what… he couldn't figure that out.

 **"Barry, we finished the detector. It's a bit bulky but it should have an area of at least 5 kilometers"** Cisco reported through the comms after about another hour. Something was definitely happening, the skies above Central City were darkening, black clouds started to pour in from over the horizon and violent winds aloft made Kara drain herself even more just by trying to fly straight. The machine was beginning to exert its force on the environment. Barry and Caitlin saw what was going on outside the lab through a window.

 **"Damn. This isn't looking good. Kara"** Caitlin started to say something to Supergirl but got cut off.

 **"Already on it Caitlin, I'm on my way to the labs now"** the blonde replied making Caitlin smile.

 **"We found something. There were a lot of Zoom sightings around a mountainous forest area about 50 km north of the city. Completely the opposite direction of where we found Zoom's lair the last time"** Other Barry commented.

 **"We discounted them before. They weren't of much use if the evil speedster was spending his time in the mountains. We only cared that he was terrorizing the city"** Other Caitlin added.

 **"Kara, I'm sending a new set of coordinates to your display. Take the detector Cisco and Harry built and head straight there. Caitlin and I will follow. That is the only place that Zoom constantly appeared except Central City and around his lair. Something must be there. I hope, because if the location is empty, we're pretty much screwed"** Barry told the blonde

 **"Meet you there"** the reply came. Caitlin and Barry flashed out of the lab. They followed Supergirl on the ground while she was flying. As they reached the area the detector that Kara was carrying started to beep **"You were right. The detector is picking up something. Let me scan the area with my vision"** she told them as she stopped above them floating. She looked at something that appeared to be a smokestack, a funnel that was going into the ground into a structure that she could not see into **"Follow me. There's sort of an entrance"** She lead the two speedsters to the opening of the funnel.

 **"Well this is going to be strange. It's not large enough for us to run down on"** Barry sighed.

 **"No problem. Caitlin, you grab Barry's legs and hold on. Barry you grab my legs and do the same. I'll float us all the way down. I don't think there's another way in and by the way this looks it's better we don't waste the time searching. Once inside we can find another exit after we disable the machine"** Kara told them pointing at the black stormy sky above them. The two speedsters nodded and the blonde floated them down into a large square chamber that contained the power amplifier and was surrounded by a force field that was generated by a pair of super conductors. Barry tried to run at it and of course he bounced back like a ping pong ball straight into Kara. The alien was strong enough to withstand the impact as she caught him.

 **"Anti-speedster. Just like the one Cisco was building. That means even if Bette took care of Jay and never left his side, he did manage to steal some of the designs we had. This is bad"** Caitlin looked at the other two persons that were with her.

 **"That shouldn't be a problem for me then"** Supergirl smiled and charged straight at the barrier. Much to her surprise it didn't let her in either **"I'm guessing it's not just for speedsters. It's meant to keep anyone out that could shut the machine down"**

 **"I wonder…"** Caitlin threw two icicles at the field and they bounced right off. **"Nope, that does work either"** she frowned.

 **"Let's think this logically. The field requires a lot of energy to run. Point energy like a speedster running at the field can easily be differed to the whole shield that way it won't buckle. What happens with continuous stress? The more damage we put into it the more strain on the super capacitors. Maybe just enough for me to phase through and take the power cell out"** Barry chimed in.

 **"I can keep a constant stream of heat vision at high temperature at the field"** Kara replied her eyes already going red.

 **"And I'll use the frost beams on it. You can give me a couple of charges before so the intensity is increased"** Caitlin added. Barry vibrated his hands and threw two lightning bolts at Caitlin who started to hit the field with one very large high intensity frost beam, Barry chuckled when he saw the Kamehameha stance she was in, remembering their discussion from so long ago in in front of the prison, when they went to pick up his father after he was released. Kara poured out the heat vision and was doing the same. After a few minutes the field began to buckle, it started to flicker on and off. Barry took his chance and between the flickers, which only lasted at the most a second, he went inside and pulled the plug on the planet killer. With the power gone the field dissipated and Kara's heat vision and Caitlin's frost beams destroyed the machine until it was just a cooled down molten frame of itself. Just to be sure, Kara went in and gave it a few punches destroying everything.

 **"We did it!"** Kara smiled brightly

 **"Yes, indeed we did"** Caitlin smiled panting.

 **"We make a pretty good team, don't we?"** Barry chuckled **"First Non, then Darhk and now Zoom. Watch out evildoers! Also, nice Kamehameha there, Frost, glad you didn't yell to power up, that would have been a bit … awkward"** Caitlin looked at him and gave him a large grin. The trio managed to find an alternate exit and sped back to STAR Labs at a leisurely pace since they were all pretty drained. On the way they saw the sky clearing and a beautiful sunny day returned, helping Kara regain some of her lost strength. Back at the Labs, their doubles, Wally, Jesse, Cisco and Harry were waiting.

 **"Done"** Barry said plopping on a sofa **"Earth two's destruction is cancelled. Now back to our regular programming"** Caitlin sat in his lap and Kara right beside him. All of them were pretty tired but happy.

 **"Thank god. Thank you for saving the planet"** their doubles gave their gratitude. Barry noticed that now the other Caitlin had an engagement ring on her finger.

 **"So it took the world ending for you to ask her to marry you, huh?"** Barry commented with a sly grin.

 **"Yeah, something like that"** the answer came from his double which was blushing furiously.

 **"Glad he finally did"** Caitlin looked at her alter ego which was blushing as well.

 **"Congratulations to you two then"** They all said to the new couple.

 **"Who's coming home for pizza and donuts?"** Cisco quipped

 **"We're going to stay here for a while longer"** Harry, Wally and Jesse told them **"The city is pretty damaged, it would help that we had two speedsters to keep the peace"** Harry continued

 **"It's not like you can't cross over to our earth anytime you want"** Barry replied shaking hands all around

 **"Well now with the breaches closed, we can't. But if Cisco keeps an eye on us maybe we can return at some point in the future"** Jesse replied

 **"If you don't come back for our wedding I'm coming back and go all Zoom on your asses. Understood?"** Barry told them with a large smile.

 **"That we won't miss. Just have Cisco tell us when it is exactly. In the summer doesn't sound like an exact date you know"** Harry smirked.

 **"All right then. We just need to do one more thing before we go. We need to go free the man in the mask from Zoom's old lair"** Barry told them and the trio was already off. They found the man in the same place but this time Kara was able to break through the prison quite easily. They took him and brought him back to STAR Labs as Cisco opened another breach back to their earth.

 **"Take care. We're going to miss you guys"** Caitlin told the ones that were staying behind **"And you, Barry Allen, you'd better treat her right or I'm going to show you what ice spears in your behind feel like"** She smirked at Barry's double.

 **"Goodbye, don't worry, we shall see each other again"** Harry told them as they stepped through the breach. They were back on their earth. Cisco, Barry, Caitlin, Kara and the masked man. They had him put on a medical bed and removed his mask only for Barry and Caitlin to make surprised faces. It was Henry Allen.

 **"Thank you for getting me out of there"** the man spoke **"My name is Jay Garrick. The real one. Hunter Zolomon stole my name and my powers. I was the Flash on my world"** Cisco took a look at the mask and saw that the inside of it had the same sort of circuitry as the device Harry invented to sap Zoom's speed.

 **"Hey. I'm Barry Allen, This is Caitlin Snow. Cisco Ramon and Kara Danvers"** Barry introduced everyone. **"Sorry for the odd looks but … you have the same face as my father"**

 **"Where are you from Jay? As far as Harry told us Earth two didn't have a speedster except Zoom who was posing as you"** Caitlin asked.

 **"I guess … I would be from what you would call Earth 3"** the speedster smiled. **"Zoom came over to my world and captured me and brought me to his so he could sap my powers and keep himself alive"**

 **"Zoom won't be a problem. We have him captured in our pipeline in a cell that will hold him there until he dies. You can return to earth 3 whenever you like provided you can give us the frequency it vibrates at. Cisco can make you a portal to there"** Barry told the aged speedster.

 **"That would be much appreciated"** The old man stood up and flashed around testing his speed **"Without that device my powers are coming back to me "**

 **"That doesn't matter, Cisco's breaches don't require the Speed Force to get through. You can just walk"** Caitlin smiled seeing the aged speedster with a surprised look.

 **"Then yes, I would love to go back to my world. I have been gone long enough. I have a city to protect"** the man smiled prompting Cisco to leave for the pedestal room.

 **"Go with him. He'll get you to where you need to go"** Barry interjected

 **"Thank you for getting me out of there"** He offered his thanks

 **"You`re welcome. Flash"** Caitlin quipped at the man sped down to the pedestal room where Cisco had already managed to open a breach with the frequency that the old speedster provided him. The engineer was back in the cortex after a bit with a strange piece of tech in his hand.

 **"Kara, mind taking your belt off and handing me the buckle?"** He asked. Kara did so holding the skirt from her costume with her hand. Cisco put something inside pressing it to a connector that was visibly there since the buckle was made, then gave Supergirl back her belt to put on **"Pull out the bracer display for me will you?"** she did so and she noticed 3 more buttons appear at the end. The tech had been integrated into the display.

 **"What did you do, Cisco?"** she smiled at the engineer.

 **"Nothing. I just gave you the ability to jump back to your world. Or from your world to here whenever you feel like it. The component I just put into your belt buckle is a mini breach generator. Anytime you need to get us, or just to come visit, just press the breach button on the bracer. It will automatically detect which universe you're in and produce a breach to the other one. Also it has integrated communication which means you can contact us from your universe via your internal comm. The phone icon on the bracer will let you do that"** Cisco smiled brightly looking at Kara who was now almost about to cry.

 **"Oh my god, thank you so much Cisco. I thought that once this is done I wouldn't be able to come visit and to be fair it was kind of disheartening. I know we have only seen each other a few times, but I'm proud to call you my friends. Being here is like being back with my family in National City"** She smiled brightly

 **"We consider you the same, Kara. What, you think Cisco just gives away the technology to jump universes to just anyone?"** Barry smiled.

 **"Well, with that said, I'm going home if my bosses don't desire to keep me at work. I miss Bette and she probably misses me even though she probably worked the whole time we were gone"** the engineer gave the couple a grin.

 **"Cisco, buzz off. That's not funny, even if you do work for "us" now you know we never considered you anything else than our best friend. So stop with the boss jokes"** Caitlin gave him a reprimand, but smiling.

 **"Tell Bette we said hi and thank her for getting the security protocols up so quickly while we were gone"** Barry replied. The engineer left and the trio was now alone in the Cortex.

 **"Barry, mind if I have some time alone with Kara? You can go check on Zoom if you want or get us some food"** Caitlin asked **_"I want to ask her to come to our wedding, but there is something I have to talk to her about in private"_** she told him mentally

 **"Sure. Tell me when I can return"** Barry smiled and flashed out the door to the pipeline

 **"Kara, what I'm going to ask you might be hard for you to say yes to, but, would you like to come to our wedding?"** Caitlin asked Kara bluntly

 **"Why would you think that it would be hard for me to say yes to?"** Kara asked trying to skirt the subject.

 **"You know very well why. You have a crush on Barry. Seeing the man you have a crush on marry someone else can't be something that you feel happy about. So that's why I asked. I was actually expecting a stern No, to be honest. Which would have been fine, as well"** Caitlin sat on the sofa and Kara sat beside her.

 **"I really don't know. You two are made for each other and you are my friends. Sure I can't say that I'm happy for myself to crush on someone who's practically married. But if you two want me there, then I will be there. I'll even be a bridesmaid, if that's what you want"** the alien blonde replied

 **"Well, I actually want that. That's why I asked"** Caitlin smiled widely making Kara look at her strangely

 **"But how? You didn't meet me that long ago. How can I be your bridesmaid? I'm an alien from another planet"** she asked

 **"Uh huh. So … what? You`re a good friend. One that has shown us she is willing to die for either of us just like we would do for you. Don't you think that matters more than what planet you were born on?"** Caitlin smiled.

 **"Then by all means I accept"** Kara hugged Caitlin at the same moment Barry zipped back into the room with food.

 **"So you did ask her and by the hug I assume she said yes"** Barry smiled at the blonde.

 **"How do you know?"** Kara asked.

 **"Um ... we can communicate mentally over large distances. He doesn't need to be here, but since we can talk he already knew what I was planning. He didn't hear the entire conversation though so you can be at peace about that"** Caitlin added seeing Kara blush profusely.

 **"My people have something like that. A Kryptonian bond. But as far as my cousin has told me it cannot completely work with a human. You two are very lucky. How did that even happen? Humans aren't supposed to have anything of the sort"** Kara asked with wide eyes.

 **"The lightning. Probably our contact gave us that ability. We can go into a shared dream as well as long as we touch when we fall asleep"** Barry explained. The three ate the food that Barry came in with and Kara realized sadly that it was time for her to go back home.

 **"I'm going back. Call me with the date when the wedding is happening and I'll be here two days early for whatever else is needed. I haven't been to a human wedding before so ... I'll need guidance"** She told the couple.

 **"Be here 4 days in advance. We need to get you a dress, shoes and other stuff. It's going to be different"** Caitlin stood up and gave her a warm hug.

 **"Take care of yourself Kara and remember. You have any sort of trouble with any of your weird alien villains. All you have to do is press a button and we'll come to help"** Barry gave her a hug and instinctively she kissed him on the cheek prompting a surprised look from the speedster.

 **"Thank you for the new suit and for everything else. Same here if you need help, who you gonna call?"** She quipped

 **"The ghostbusters?"** Caitlin cracked when Barry started to hum the theme and they all started to laugh.

 **"Yes Kara. We will call. Don't be a stranger though, that com line can tie you into the cortex as well as our suits"** Barry told her. Supergirl gave both another big hug, enough for them to actually feel it, pressed the button on her armlet and a blue breach appeared in the cortex in front of her. She stepped through and the breach was gone.

 **"I'm going to miss her"** Caitlin found herself saying

 **"So will I. She's definitely something else"** Barry replied. Cisco came back into the Cortex, coming back to get something he forgot, at which point Barry decided to ask a stupid question

 **"Cisco, you never explained who you manage to make breaches so perfectly with just the frequency. What do you dial them in or something?"**

 **"Do I look like a great big ring made of alien metal?"** Cisco started to laugh. **"No, I just … feel them I guess"** Caitlin and Barry started to laugh with the engineer that had obviously seen too many sci-fi series. The engineer left with Barry following close behind. He had Caitlin in his arms and he was running at a leisurely pace toward their home. They needed some rest after everything.


	42. Together

Over the next period of time Caitlin and Barry kept an eye on Zoom. Harry was right, the way the cell was designed to drain and dissipate his speed force had taken a toll on his system. While he was someone that he didn't deserve even a bit of compassion, the cell had monitors that would tell them if something was wrong with him and it already started, the pains seemed to be unbearable, he was screaming and hitting his fists on the walls of the containment unit not being able to muster even enough power to move his hand at super speed. Out of pity, Barry had Cisco fill the cell with a painkiller gas that managed to help him, however remotely. The pains did stop, in his final hours he was calm, he took off his mask and looked at the entrance to the cell which was made of glass, almost like expecting to see someone, or actually seeing someone there. The damage that was accelerating his cellular death could have affected his brain and given him way more than hallucinations, but none of them actually wanted to risk going into his cell to examine him. In the end there was nothing they could do for him, while asleep his body disintegrated in a cloud of blue smoke, much like Trajectory's had. The only thing that was left was his mask. Even the suit had disintegrated along with him. Zoom was gone and along with him the threat that he posed to the multiverse.

Caitlin woke up with a pain in her back. She turned over and found out that the reason for that pain was Barry's hand under her. The bed was not really designed for someone to sleep like that. The unevenness got her muscles twisted enough that even super regeneration wouldn't help. She got out of the bend and started to do basic stretches until she felt the muscles return to normal and then turned to the bed. Barry was awake, watching her. She had been doing her exercises with her back to the bed so she couldn't see him. He was smirking widely. She had no idea why and then she realized that the only thing she was wearing at the time was a pair of panties.

 **"Good morning"** She smiled and came back over to the bed kissing him.

 **"Good morning to you too. It's nice to have such a nice view first thing in the morning"** Barry commented making her blush. She found out that even if they had been together for that would be called quite a long time, she would still blushing almost every time he offered her a compliment. **"So, why the stretches?"**

 **"I woke up with a chink in my back. It was annoying me and it didn't seem to regenerate so I decided to stretch. The position in which I slept was probably weird"** Caitlin offered putting on one of his long shirts.

 **"Yeah, this bed has had it. To be fair it stood up valiantly to our shenanigans at super speed. But I think it might be time to get a new one"** Barry pointed out the fact that the legs already had cracks in them.

 **"I think it might be time for something more. We're about to get married. Maybe it's time to get a place of our own and maybe a little bigger. I realized that when Oliver and Kara stayed over. We don't even have a guest room for crying out loud, if more than two people want to visit where are we going to put them?"** Caitlin told the speedster.

 **"I guess we might need rooms for kids too"** Barry spoke without thinking, he didn't really grasp what he said until he saw Caitlin's face. She was totally taken aback by his direct statement even if she had nothing against it. The blunt force of those words hit her like one of Kara's punches. Barry saw her face and instantly tried to backtrack. **"That's if you want kids"**

 **"Of course I do, you just surprised me with the direct approach with that statement"** She smiled at him **"I guess then we should start house hunting, shouldn't we?"** she asked cheerfully

 **"Sure. Captain Singh will call us if there is something to be done at the precinct, Cisco will do the same if a surprise metahuman pops up in the city, I guess we can take a day off from all the things we usually do"** she commented. Barry started to make coffee and brought out a laptop he had bought in case they needed to check the status of STAR Labs. They would do the same to STAR West, but Felicity managed that company so well that they seldom had to. She had been keeping her promises. There was a try a few weeks back of a hostile takeover by another multinational corporation, but she nipped in the bud and so professionally that the people who tried to undercut the shares of STAR West actually formally apologized.

 **"So where do we start. Or better said what should we look for?"** Barry offered.

 **"I have no clue to be honest. What would be your idea?"** She asked. She did indeed want a new house, but in all honesty that had occurred to her this morning when she put two and two together after they had guests, so she had no idea what they would want.

 **"I always wanted a house in the suburbs, you know, large abode, garage, picket fence. But in the last years we learned that we have to be close to the city so ... those preferences have changed. I would look for a bigger apartment in the city. Something close to STAR Labs and the precinct so we can move around quickly if needed"** Barry voiced his thoughts.

 **"Yea, you`re right about that. Even if we can get into the city in a few seconds, sometimes a few seconds can cost lives. Ok so a home in the city it is. What do you think, 3 bedroom apartment?"** She asked. He was making coffee while she was searching for homes on the internet.

 **"Caitlin, you keep forgetting we're filthy rich"** Barry snickered.

 **"Yeah. We don't act like it and to be fair it is pretty easy to forget when you just continue your life the way you always had to even if you do have money"** She smiled at him **"I never really thought I would be saying this … ever in this life. But why don't we splurge and buy a penthouse somewhere?"**

 **"Now you`re thinking like a rich person. Although, do we really need it? We're rarely home anyway"** Barry inquired while thinking logically

 **"You did mention kids and we'd be fools to think that our offspring wouldn't have the same powers we have, or at least a variant of each one. Which means we do need a large space for them to run in, even if it's just indoors"** Caitlin followed his train of thought.

 **"Point taken. Even though we both know that they could turn out completely normal as well. Genetics while being an exact science is still based on probability. Penthouse it is then. How many offers are available in Central City for that?"** He poured coffee into both their cups and before she could answer raced down and bought some donuts as well.

 **"Enough, but some are really far from where we want to be, which is a bummer. The only offers in the area of STAR Labs amount to four of them"** She turned over the laptop so he could see as well.

 **"That one only had two bedroom. What the hell it's a penthouse, what's the rest of the space, and indoor pool?"** Barry said a bit frustrated.

 **"Actually, yes, that one has an indoor pool which is taking enough space for at least three other rooms"** She pointed at the facilities it had.

 **"Well that's off the list. What about this one?"**

 **"A master bedroom, two guest rooms, four bedrooms, a library, an office, a kitchen, four bathrooms and a 10 x 10 living room. This actually seems pretty good"** She nodded.

 **"You know what? Make appointments for all of them. It's easier to go see and then choose"** Barry told his fiancée

 **"All those are from the same agency. Which is good because we can just go with the agent and visit all four locations"** she answered. While they were finishing their breakfast Barry made a call and set up visits for all of the locations they had chosen all one after another and with the same agent. It would be later in the day so they decided to go to STAR Labs to check on things there. They encountered Cisco and Bette snogging in the Cortex.

 **"Hey you two, get a room will you?"** Barry snickered as the two broke apart blushing

 **"I didn't think you would be in today with everything being so calm. I did want to call you though. I'm going to need your rings"** The engineer replied.

 **"I guess we can do without our suits for a bit. Why do you need them?"** Caitlin inquired.

 **"I'm going to upgrade them. I didn't have time with all the commotion that we had till now with Darhk and Zoom. I want to put the same type of display that I put in Kara's suit and I have a few other things like anti shearing, zero point hardening and stuff like that"** he replied.

 **"Zero point hardening? What's that?"** Caitlin asked while she and Barry turned over their rings to him

 **"Basically when someone shoots you, the impact is transferred from the bullet to the body penetrating it. If I make the material sheer proof like I did with Kara, then the bullet will only manage to redirect the energy to the fabric. While that is true, the material itself is not able at this time to stand to that amount of energy, it will loosen and the bullet might be able to penetrate the skin. What I'm going to do is this. I'm going to make the whole suit our of polycarbonate nanofibers that contain Ray's technology. The structure will harden slightly when you run to be able to keep up with the heat and the friction. Here comes the cool part though. If you get hit by a projectile, the nanites will harden the material around the impact site making the material able to distribute the energy that's being delivered into it evenly throughout the suit. In essence it will nullify the kinetic energy of a bullet much like Kevlar, only not being bulky and weigh you both down"** Cisco explained with pride in his eyes.

 **"But wouldn't the suit require a lot of energy to power the nanobots?"** Caitlin inquired

 **"Yes, but you produce lightning when you run. Which is pure energy. Basically the suit can harvest some of that energy without actually sapping you of your powers and stay 100% charged to be able to respond to threats"** The engineer responded

 **"That's amazing Cisco. Can we make this work for normal people as well?"** Barry started to think big yet again.

 **"What do you mean?"** the question came

 **"If you can do that for our suits, can you build a suit for firefighters that has the same technology? Maybe withstand extreme heat and small explosions or backdrafts that would keep a firefighter intact?"** Caitlin continued the speedster's idea.

 **"Sure why wouldn't it be possible. We can have Curtis build us some power cells so that the suits can have well limited power. They won't have lightning to recharge them, but yes, that's totally possible"** the engineer told them.

 **"We can do that for cops as well. They can wear under their uniforms a layered material, kind of like a body suit with the cell attached that would literally prevent them from being injured while not restricting their movement"** Barry added. Bette was looking at the three of them, the glint they had in their eyes was showing. They could do something that was going to benefit the people.

 **"I'll talk to Felicity"** Barry pulled out his phone and dialed her only to hear a strange ringtone that was coming from the tunnel that was leading into the cortex. A few seconds later, a smiling Felicity was standing in the doorway. The next face they saw surprised them. Ray was with them.

 **"Hello. I heard you need an IT security expert to upgrade your systems"** She smiled

 **"Felicity!"** the two speedsters smiled widely and Caitlin went to give her a hug. Barry turned to Ray.

 **"Weren't you … you know … dead?"** the speedster asked.

 **"Long story. I put a miniaturization option in my suit and when I tested it … it made me the size of a cockroach. Even smaller. So as much as people thought I was dead, I was very much alive, just … smaller"** He smiled.

 **"Who cares? Good to have you back, Ray"** Caitlin smiled. Felicity already took to the consoles and starting working on the upgrades. It was like the woman didn't have a keyboard in her hand for more than a few hours she would get a panic attack.

 **"So, I heard that you bought Palmer Tech"** Ray inquired **"Felicity put me up to speed about what you did to the board. Nice work on that by the way, they were being thorns in my side for a lot of the time"**

 **"Yea, the board of directors was being composed of greedy asshats so we kind of showed them what happens when they mess with us"** Barry smiled.

 **"So? Do you want your company back?"** Caitlin asked surprising most of the people there.

 **"I actually don't. All I wanted was to work in peace and help the world. The management aspect was draining so much time from what I wanted to do that to be honest I really don't want that again"** Ray added. **"Besides, you seem to be doing pretty well with my legacy? Four days to make a chip that would help someone walk again? I would say that's something worth being proud of"**

 **"Felicity, I called you because I wanted to ask you something"** Barry spoke **"Can you have Curtis make us a few power cells? Cisco has some ideas that might revolutionize the way people use armor nowadays. With the help of Ray's nanite research we can make some cool stuff that would keep cops and firefighters safe"**

 **"You`re asking me if I can? You know all you have to do is order them. It's still your company"** Felicity smiled at the two **"Of course. The problem is those cells are very expensive to make so … I would have to ask Curtis to find out a way to cut production costs"**

 **"I'm going to ask Tina McGee if Mercury Labs can handle that part. She already helped in completing the cell and she might have a few ideas considering she's the resident physicist"** Caitlin chimed in

 **"That would be a good idea. So to what do we owe the visit, Ray? I know Felicity dropped by to improve our security"** Barry added.

 **"I wanted to ask if I can have my old job back at STAR West and my lab. I would like to help you guys in making the world a better place in any way I can. Besides, since I have the suit I can help Oliver when he needs to as well, but I can finally return to what I wanted to do from the start. Invent and discover things that will change the world for the better"** Ray smiled to the couple.

 **"And you had to come all the way here to ask us? Felicity could have done that without a problem. We trust her to keep the company up and running"** Caitlin retorted.

 **"Oh she could? She never told me that"** Ray looked at a grinning Felicity **"What were you planning, Felicity?"**

 **"I thought that since those two are getting married, they might need an ordained minister to perform the ceremony and who better than an old friend with a shrinking suit"** The blonde smiled brightly also slightly smirking

 **"You`re a total riot"** Ray told Felicity. The couple didn't know him that well, they had no reason to accept what the blonde had told them.

 **"That is a great idea. Better a friend than some random who doesn't even know what he's doing there. That's it, Ray, you`re the minister"** Caitlin quipped grinning at the scientist.

 **"Wait, really? Just like that?"** he was taken aback by the speed at which Frost responded.

 **"Yep. Just like that"** Barry replied as well.

 **"Damn, I don't even have a date"** He said with a frown.

 **"I'm sure Thea wouldn't mind if you ask her"** Felicity added **"Just make sure Oliver knows about it unless you want to wake up with a few arrows in your gut while you sleep"**

 **"We need to go, we've started looking at other places to live in and we have a few scheduled to go to today. You don't mind do you?"** Caitlin asked

 **"Of course we don't"** the blonde replied and Cisco smirked. **"I might not be able to finish this today though so, mind arranging some accommodations for us?"**

 **"Bette, mind taking care of that for us? We really have to get going"** She nodded and the couple exited the cortex to go meet with the real estate agent.

They took the places in the reverse order they would have normally done with the most likely to be bought being last. The first penthouse didn't really inspire them as a place to live. It was more for rich people than for normal ones that wanted enough space for a family. It had a media room, another indoor pool and a sauna, one small kitchen and one small bathroom the rest of the space being the living room which was immense and two bedrooms. A master bedroom and another small room. They skipped that telling the agent it wasn't by far what they were looking for.

 ** _"This is definitely not it"_** Caitlin told her fiancée **_"While having an indoor pool is nice and all, we wanted something for the space. This is definitely not something that says "Space". If there's something that it says is "wasted space" or "bachelor pad". Nothing else"_**

 ** _"I do agree with you, the master bedroom seems nice, but the pool and the sauna, yeah those are total wastes from our point of view. We move on then"_** he replied smiling toward her and taking her hand.

The second one was acceptable with a few glaring minuses. The view was completely obstructed by another skyscraper which just so happened to have most of its space rented out by a media corporation. The two didn't think it was a good idea to have them flash in and out of the building on the side where everyone could see them. Especially not the media. The other glaring minus was the fact that it had one level which only had a moderate sized living room. The fact that they might have speedster kids was as much of a concern as anything so the small play space wasn't something they wanted. The skipped that one too, the agent looking at them rather surprised when they said they actually wanted to see the sunrise and sunset from their apartment. You could not have seen anything from the balcony of the penthouse that they were currently vising, fact that was glaringly obvious.

The third one however was the one they initially set their eyes on. This penthouse did not have just one level, but two. The access was secure it had a separate elevator in the back of the building with fingerprint scanning that was required to press the buttons to access it. Alternatively it could be set to full body scanning with a bit of improvement from STAR Labs, which would mean that even if an intruder had managed to get into the elevator with a false fingerprint it would not go until the full body scan was complete and it had cleared.

Large staircases on either side lead to different parts of the place. The one on the right contained the master bedroom which was huge at the end of a hallway with its own bathroom that had a large tub, a shower and a toilet. Two guest rooms that were similar to a 5 star hotel in any city had their entrances going into the main living area on the same side as the Master bedroom, being on either side of the hallway that lead to it. At the end of the railing that was the second floor beyond the guest room was another Bathroom. On the other side the four bedrooms each with its own entrance from another hallway that had the second staircase at the end that lead to the living area and another bathroom at the opposite end.

Right to the entrance there was a walk in closet that could hold a lot of clothes. Under the Master bedroom was the office that actually had a separate staircase above beside the normal entrance from the living room. The library was under the four rooms on the opposite side of the apartment. It held two small rooms in the back which could be classified as storage, but Barry and Caitlin saw them as another thing. Last but not least, the kitchen and another bathroom were on each side of the hallway that lead to the office.

The living area however was something else. Large windows that could let the sun in overviewed the city in all its beauty. The second story railing went out and had separate staircases to lead to the balcony and the main room had two large doors that could open to give access to the same balcony. The couple went outside and looked around. There were no media conglomerates, nothing that would bring attention to them if the two flashes would go up and down the building or anything of the sort. They had a perfect view of STAR Labs that was on their right side in the distance and the NCPD which was on the left at the side of the building. The agent let them know that the outside glass had a nice feature to it. I could turn black at the push of a button. The whole façade would turn black hiding everyone inside from prying eyes. The Agent even demonstrated that only specific windows could turn while others could be left clear. The couple verified that while the façade was black one of them ran to STAR and checked the place out with a high powered scope. Nothing could be seen from there.

 ** _"This is perfect. It's beautiful"_** Barry stated as he looked out the balcony.

 ** _"The view is breathtaking. I really like the windows with the darkening options, the seemed to have thought that with a façade so large, people could actually look in your house"_** Caitlin answered.

 ** _"Yeah, we don't want a rogue helicopter with journalists coming around and seeing flashes of lightning in our home. That would be stupid. But this is it, isn't it?"_** Barry asked his fiancée

 ** _"This is definitely it. We'll buy it. Look at us, buying stuff like rich people. If you`d have told me a few years back I would be filthy rich and marrying the man of my dreams I would have told you you`re full of it"_** she said.

 **"This is what we want. We'll buy it"** Barry spoke out loud. The real estate agent was staring at them like they were kidding.

 **"Sir, you do know the asking price for this is 15 million dollars and there are already a number of bids on it. You might have to wait, there are other people that would like to visit this establishment and place their bids on it as well"** he replied.

 **"I believe my husband said we'll buy it. Which means that we will give you the asking price. We didn't mention anything about a bid, did we?"** Caitlin replied to the stunned man.

 **"Even better. There's 100000 in it for you separately, besides the commission you are going to get if you have the papers ready today"** Barry told him

 **"Sorry to ask, but who might you two be?"** the agent asked with surprise that the people in front of him had so much money as to buy this penthouse at its full price. Which by his own knowing was a bit overpriced specifically to ward away people that did not have the money or wanted to haggle on the price.

 **"Caitlin and Barry Allen. We're the owners of STAR Labs"** Catlin replied bluntly, she knew that they weren't married yet, but her using that name instead of her own made her stomach fill with butterflies, like a giddy school girl hanging around her crush. The agent's face froze. He had heard of the couple, but never saw their faces. He had missed the unveil ceremony of STAR Labs so he was aware that it was under new management just not who the actual owners were. And of course, like any other good real estate agent they knew the two were loaded.

 **"Very well, Mrs. Allen. I will have the papers done by the end of the day. Here's the key to the elevator and you will need to talk with the super of the building to have your fingerprints added to the database of the building for accepted people in the elevator"** The agent told them.

 **"Just for now. We fully intend to separate this penthouse's control center from the building and tie it into our own computer mainframe at STAR Labs. That way the transition would be smooth and anyone that has access at STAR will have access here as well. But that will take a while so ... where's the super's office?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"First floor, second door on the right. Are you ok to handle this by yourselves? I need to go and start the papers for the property as soon as I get the money"** the agent replied.

 **"Do you have an account?"** Barry inquired as the real estate agent looked through his phone

 **"Yes sir. This would be the account"** he showed the speedster an account number. Barry took out his phone and transferred the required money into the account that the agent showed him from one of the secondary Swiss accounts that were rarely used.

 **"The other cash will be made available to you when I have the papers in hand"** the speedster replied prompting the agent to leave urgently. The two went to the super's office and got their fingerprints registered, also telling him that they will take their home off the control grid of the building something to which he did not object. In the end it was their property. They went back up and Barry called Cisco.

 **"Cisco, you said at one point that it would be wise to set up some Offsite backups for the data we have in the lab. What would you need to do that?"**

 **"Well, at least one room full of servers and of course a direct authenticated connection to the STAR Mainframe. Which would require satellite access. Wired would be best of data access time and satellite for the rest. Why?"** the engineer asked.

 **"Well we do have 2 empty rooms at the place we just bought and we kind of need the control of the apartment to be handled by the STAR Mainframe so that nobody has to go and get their fingerprints registered like we just did, to get into our apartment. We thought you could set up something here"** Caitlin replied.

 **"You just started looking a while ago and you already bought something? This I have to see. I'll be there in a bit with Bette. Mind if I bring Felicity and Ray? Felicity can offer advice on the tech infrastructure and we don't want to leave our guest alone"** the engineer replied.

 **"Sure, bring them with you. This is where you need to go. Call us from the Lobby, since our fingerprints are the only ones registered you won't be able to call the elevator without one of us, until we get the mess sorted via the Labs' mainframe"** Barry explained while sending the address to the engineer's phone.

 **"Elevator? What? Wait … what did you guys buy?"** The engineer sounded a bit worried but also very interested

 **"Come and you'll see"** Caitlin smirked and Barry closed the line. In about half an hour Barry got a text that the four people were in the lobby so he went down to get them. When they entered the place Cisco and Bette were wide eyed, Felicity's face fell and Ray started to smile.

 **"You bought … a penthouse. A whole freaking penthouse?! It's not even a single level for crying out loud, it has two"** Cisco looked at the two which shrugged.

 **"Cisco, you do remember these two are filthy rich now right?"** Bette looked at him and snickered.

 **"This looks amazing"** Felicity went straight out to the balcony to take in the air and the beauty of the view **"And you can come in and go out as you please"**

 **"This is even bigger than my last apartment"** Ray commented prompting a weird look from Felicity **"What? I was rich once and had a penthouse for a place to live"** He smirked. **"And then I died"** everyone started to chuckle at that including him.

 **"Cisco, go in the library, there are two rooms at the end. See if you can set up that offsite backup system we were talking about in there"** Barry told him.

 **"What else would you guys need here?"** Felicity asked.

 **"Well, we want this penthouse taken off the buildings control panels. The access will be done via STAR databases with their own access. Since most of you already have security profiles there, it would be easier than to make them ourselves with the super here. Only a few select people will be able to come and go as they please of course. The rest will not. Also increased security for the elevator that can get us here. The fingerprinting is good for now, but I would like to add weight sensors and full body scans to that. In case someone can fake a fingerprint they won't be able to fake those security measures"** Caitlin told them

 **"I would agree with that. Security profiles from STAR would be good, but the other scanners would prevent anyone from getting in if they aren't actually authorized. I can get right on that if you two want it done fast"** Bette smiled seeing how happy the two were with their purchase.

 **"I can get the orders in for the servers and the satellite link and have them here by tomorrow. With your speed you should be able to have them set up in no time. Felicity and I can go to work implementing what you just said, after everything has arrived"** Cisco replied. **"In the mean time I can upgrade your suits, since I didn't get that much time as I had thought when you said you were going to buy a house"**

 **"That seems perfect. We will probably begin to redecorate and we will have to move in at some point which will probably be tomorrow or the day after. Besides, a house warming party doesn't sound so bad does it"** Caitlin smiled.

 **"That sounds like an excellent idea. We need to invite a few people. I'll start the arrangements as soon as we get the deed from the agent"** Barry's face was lit up

 **"I'm going to help with what I can. I don't think there's a point now in me actually going back to Star City for the night"** Ray smiled.

 **"No, we already have booked a room for you at the hotel"** Caitlin smiled

 **"So wait, where am I supposed to sleep?"** Felicity realized he said room not rooms.

 **"We thought you might want our couch"** Caitlin smiled. **"Oliver had no problem with it last time he was here. But if you want a hotel room that's fine too"**

 **"I'll take the couch. It will give me a chance to catch up with you guys. It's been a long time since we had time to talk anything except work"** Felicity smiled

 **"All right, then. Meet here in the morning after the servers arrive to get everything in order"** Caitlin smiled.


	43. Party

Barry, Caitlin and Felicity returned to their apartment. On their way they met with the Real Estate agent that kept his promise. He had the papers ready by the end of the day and Barry rewarded him accordingly. Ray had gone to the hotel Cisco and Bette went back to their place. The three stopped by Jitters to get some tea and donuts while Barry ran to get some pizza from Coast City. That gave the two women a bit of time to talk.

 **"How did we even get here, Caitlin? A few years ago I was just a mild mannered IT girl working for Oliver Queen. Now I'm VP of a company that makes more money that Queen Consolidated ever made. You were just a scientist that worked at STAR. Now you own it with the man you love. It's so strange how much just a few years can change your perspective of the world"**

 **"I don't know Felicity. If three years ago you would have told me that I would be filthy rich, marry the man of my dreams and buy a 15 million penthouse for a home all the while saving this city and two alternate earths, I would have told you that you`re full of shit"** Caitlin replied pretty seriously.

 **"Which reminds me. Have you started looking for dresses yet?"** the blonde asked.

 **"I have. But not seriously. I don't know it's like sometimes I'm still waiting to wake up from the dream I'm in"** Caitlin replied.

 **"The wedding is in like three weeks. Are you even serious right now?"** Felicity asked

 **"I know, I know. I shouldn't mess around. But with all the things that have been happening I seriously didn't think to go look for anything"** The reply came

 **"Then it's settled. Tomorrow morning before the bulk of the stuff arrives we're going shopping. I'll take care of the appointment. Barry doesn't need you to set up the servers and Cisco knows his tech. They should be fine on their own. If not, maybe the day after we finish. Who else do you have as bridesmaids?"** Felicity asked.

 **"Beside you? Well ... Bette, Kara and Iris" She responded.**

 **"And what about groomsmen?"**

 ** _"Hey, Felicity is asking about groomsmen. Have you decided who you want yet?"_** Caitlin asked Barry

 ** _"Oliver as the best man, since that was already discussed back when we were in Star City and Felicity got shot, Cisco for sure he's like my best friend right now, Eddie because he's part of the family and a really cool dude and probably Diggle"_** the answer came

 **"Oliver, Cisco, more than likely Eddie, because he's family already and probably Diggle. I would guess that Henry will play the father role this time"** Caitlin enumerated the people that she was thinking about.

 **"I see. So 4 pairs. Do you even have any idea how large the wedding will be?"**

 **"Nope, we just invited everyone who we would want there so … I have no idea. It sounds a bit weird about the Bride not actually caring about the wedding now doesn't it? Maybe it should be a good idea if I hired a wedding planner. Not like money's a problem"** Caitlin realized. **"Does it seem weird that I just want to get this over with and not care about it that much?"**

 **"It would, but you two are technically already married. You spend most of your time together, you work together, live together, sleep together. Beside the fact that you aren't actually married on paper and share names, you two have been living the married life for a while now"** Felicity smiled.

 **"I guess we have. Although to be fair, when I told that real estate agent that my name was Caitlin Allen I got a whole series of butterflies in my stomach"** Caitlin smiled remembering the first day that she laid her eyes on Barry and how she felt when he used the name she was about to have in just a bit over three weeks. Speaking of the devil the mentioned man had just stepped into the living room with a few boxes of pizza.

 **"Wedding talks, huh?"** He smirked

 **"How did you … oh"** Felicity saw Caitlin point at her head.

 **"How did you think I knew the names of the groomsmen? I asked him"** She smirked.

 **"You ask about our wedding. How about yours, did you even start thinking about it?"** Barry asked the blonde.

 **"Not really. Ollie is really busy now with Thea and Laurel trying to keep a lid on the Mayor's office. Now that after the Darhk debacle he's been instated as interim Mayor of Star City, I've been working in upgrading the programming in the chips in my back to use even less power. And helping Curtis devise some things that would help the firm as well. On the side I started to build some new types of security protocols that will make everything that they are installed on virtually unbreakable. They are my own design, so even if someone gets their hands on them, it will take a long while until they get through the encryptions"** The blonde offered.

 **"Pretty busy then. I guess we were busy ourselves with all the stuff that has happened. We were never really home. Earth – 38, then Earth 2, then back here. Pretty wild ride. But I guess now that the wedding is approaching we decided to get another house"** Caitlin took a piece of pizza and started to munch on it.

 **"We were happy to find out that Ray was alive. He was being held captive by some members of Darhk's organization to see if they could duplicate his findings. We managed to get him out before they did something incredibly stupid"** The blonde added.

 **"How did you know? Last time we talked on this subject you were pretty sure he was dead"** Barry inquired.

 **"We found a glitch in the mainframe which turned out to be a message that Ray left for me. Me and Curtis traced that message back and realized that Ray was not only alive, but also in trouble. So ... we went and rescued him"**

 **"That's good. Ray will be a good addition to the team. He's brilliant and the stuff he already invented contributes so much to what we can do. Besides I do remember those words you uttered in the lab when they were working on his suit. Still think like that?"** Caitlin smirked at Felicity

 **"Not so much. I love Oliver. As dark and as broody as he is, you two managed to make him lighten up. He actually talks to me now, doesn't keep half as many secrets as he did and even when he does, he is careful enough in his work to come back to me safely. I have you two to thank for that. I think seeing you work together even when you could both die made him realize that even if I'm standing behind a screen every day doesn't mean I don't worry"** she replied

 **"Think we can finish what we planned in half a day? I'm going to start calling the others to find out if they want to come to the party or not"** Caitlin thought out loud.

 **"I don't see why not. The reprogramming won't take that long. With your speed you can resolve the wires and the connection issues throughout the apartment and the only think that could pose an issue would be installing the antenna for the satellite uplink. I don't think even you two are that powerful to be able to lift a dish that size"** Felicity told them

 **"Not us ... but we have someone that can"** Barry smirked **"Besides we planned to invite her anyway to the party so I don't see why we can't invite her a little sooner"** he picked up a communicator and took out his phone to have it dial in Kara. A voice was soon heard from the other side of the line

 **"Hello?"**

 **"Hi Kara, its Barry"** the speedster smiled

 **"Hey! I was wondering what you two might have been doing. It's boring here now that Non is down and out. Nothing but happy go lucky bank robbers that think they can succeed even with me around"** Kara replied

 **"I was wondering if you'd be interested in coming to a house warming party. Caitlin and I bought a new apartment and we're moving tomorrow so ... we thought why not"** Barry told the blonde alien.

 **"Sure. I don't have anything to do. I can come early and help you with stuff as well, if you need it"** Kara said excited. She didn't have anything planned for the week end anyway

 **"Funny you should say that. We want to turn our apartment into a secondary location for STAR Labs. But for that we need a satellite uplink and neither me nor Caitlin are strong enough to lift a satellite dish on the roof"** Barry stated.

 **"So you need someone to do the heavy lifting huh?"** Kara said and her voice sounded annoyed, but failing badly at it

 **"If you don't want to that's not a problem"** Barry tried to backtrack only to be cut off by a laughter.

 **"Of course I'll help, you nerd. Do you want me to bring anyone else to the party?"** she asked.

 **"Yeah. Bring Alex and Winn as well. I would suggest you don't bring James"** Barry told the blonde.

 **"I didn't really think about him to be honest. Ok, I'll cross over tomorrow morning to help you and then tell Winn and Alex to be in my apartment at 7. I suspect Cisco will open them a way to come there?"** Kara asked.

 **"Yep, we'll be counting on him to do that. I think Harry, Jesse and Wally from earth 2 might want to come as well"** he replied.

 **"All right. I'll see you tomorrow then. Good night"** an excited Kara closed the line.

 **"I kind of envy you two. You have a family of super friends available at the push of a button. Two other speedsters, an alien that probably has more power than all of you, a man that can shrink and one that can throw fire so hot that can melt steel beams like they're butter. I feel like that should be the theme of some TV show"** the blonde smiled.

 **"You`re wrong. You`re all a part of our super friends no matter how super powered or not powered at all you are. That's what makes us friends. Adversity and the power to stick together and be there for each other"** Barry smirked at the blonde who was starting to yawn **.**

 **"All right. Let's hit the sack. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day"** Caitlin suggested and gave Felicity some pajamas. The three fell asleep rather quickly before even the clock struck midnight.

The next morning they woke up rather early. They were all excited to get to work. Cisco surprised them by having the servers flown in at night from Star City. It was 8 in the morning when the three returned to the penthouse. They got coffee for everyone. Cisco joined them later followed by Bette and Ray. They all took a table to the balcony and enjoyed the beautiful morning.

 **"So what do we start with?"** Bette asked nonchalantly

 **"I would suggest we get the servers set up. I received confirmation from STAR that they are already there. After that we should start rewiring the connection from the elevator to the internal systems and while Ray does that we can set up the connection to the labs. When we finish with the actual manual labor Felicity can get to work her magic"** Cisco smiled.

 **"How can I get into the elevator shaft thought? It's not like I can fly"** Ray asked surprised.

 **"Actually yes you can. I had Thea and Laurel pack your suit in a crate that was flown to the labs as well. So you can fly and shrink, which we will need. Some of the connections of the building are in the walls and we can't get there to rewire them or just cut them off. But you can"** Barry smiled.

 **"You thought of everything didn't you?"** Ray smirked.

 **"I'm the head of a multinational multimillion corporation. Of course I have to think ahead"** Barry smirked **"But no, that was Felicity's idea not mine"** and then started to laugh

 **"Cisco, did you manage to talk to Harry and the others from earth 2 if they're coming?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"Yes they are. I'll open for them a portal when the time comes"** he smiled taking out a duffle bag in which he had his gloves and glasses.

 **"I also talked to the others from Star City. I sent back the jet to get them. Oliver, Thea, Laurel and Diggle will be here by the time the party starts"** Felicity told them

 **"Good. I guess then let's get started. Caitlin and I will run to STAR and start bringing the servers and their racks in one by one. Ray when were done, you start disconnecting the penthouse and the elevator from the building and start connecting it to the internal system. Bette, see if you can help Ray and install the added sensors on the elevator. Refer to Cisco for more information. Felicity, we're going to show you where we want the servers and leave what we bring outside. Can you handle building them on your own?"** Barry asked.

 **"Of Course. The racks aren't that heavy and I still can carry stuff like a normal human. Just not overexert myself with the fact that my spine is broken that's all"** She replied nonchalantly like it was perfectly normal for a human with a broken spine to do what she was doing. As they went back into the room a large blue swirling vortex appeared and out of it stepped Kara. Caitlin was ready for her coming and got a set of her clothes from their apartment when they came back.

 **"Good morning"** she quipped giving Barry a hug and then Caitlin.

 **"Morning, Kara. Glad you could make it"** The speedsters replied.

 **"So, besides carrying a few tons related to a Satellite dish. What else can I help with?"** she asked.

 **"Well follow my lead and Caitlin's. Since you`re pretty fast just do what we do. After that ... we'll see"** Barry told her and Supergirl put her mask on remembering that she was on another earth.

 **"I brought you some of the clothes you bought last time you were here. They`re upstairs in a closet in a guest room. I'll show you where when you want to change"** Caitlin smiled toward the blonde.

 **"Good, I don't want a remake of the last time we tried that and I pressed my necklace"** she blushed remembering her standing in just a pair of panties on top of STAR Labs

 **"Oh, before we start, you might want these back"** Cisco pulled out two rings from his pocket **"I managed to finish upgrading your suits. As we discussed previously they include the zero point hardening fabrics and everything else I could think of. And you wouldn't want to run to STAR labs in normal attire, especially not carrying STAR property. People might think you`re stealing all of a sudden"** The two speedsters got their rings and changed into their suits and ran out with Kara following. She decided to run with them instead of actually flying. She liked running now, it was different, before she would just fly wherever she wanted, but after she met the two and ran more, the feeling of speed that running gave her was nice and refreshing compared to flying. The stands were brought in first. Cisco and Felicity making quick work of them with the help of Barry who was playing "Screwdriver". Then the servers started pouring in. After about an hour all of them were secured in their racks and Felicity started to connect them all to a master. Cisco went to help Bette and Ray that added the new sensors to the elevator. Ray realized that for the wires to reach all the way to the top floor they would have to be through the walls where everything else was.

Cisco already thought ahead and with all the equipment came two rolls of about 50 meters of cable that would be used to connect the lower sensors and the cameras, the elevator and the thumb print analyzer to the system that was now taking shape in the two rooms behind the library. They decided that it was way easier to run those cables down the side of the elevator shaft. Since it was their own private elevator, the shaft only had two exits. Lobby and their apartment.

After Felicity had the servers in order it was time to get the connection going to STAR Labs. They already had a wired connection thank to the fact the apartment already had hi speed internet, but some of the features and functions that the STAR Labs mainframe required needed a satellite connection.

Kara had flown back to STAR to get the stand and the satellite dish that was already on the roof of the building, bringing it back to the roof of theirs. She secured it in place with anchors and to make sure she welded the base of the dish to the roof. The connections to the satellite dish were soon made as well, the system began to boot and draw data from STAR Labs.

Ray had seen Supergirl fly the dish and land with no difficulty whatsoever and seeing that he didn't know her he went and asked the resident speedster.

 **"Barry, who is she? I haven't met her before. All I heard that her name is Kara"** Ray asked.

 **"Yes. She's a superhero on her earth. She has a lot of different powers, like speed and strength, laser vision and a few more. We helped her a while back with some issues and we've been friends ever since. Since we don't have super strength we asked her to come help us with the dish"** Barry said bluntly

 **"Her earth? So multiverse?"** Ray asked

 **"Yea, you saw the blue vortex that she came out of right? That is a path to another world. Cisco can create them. Caitlin and I went to her world by accident a few months back"** The speedster replied.

 **"So can you tell me more about her powers and about her in general?"** Ray asked pretty interested in the blonde that could apparently lift a satellite dish like it was a ball of yarn.

 **"You can ask her yourself if you want. I'll introduce her later. I forgot that not all people here knew her already"** Barry excused himself. Ray nodded and went back to work.

It was already 3 PM when everything was set up and Felicity, Cisco and Ray started to work on the connectivity issues and the connection to STAR. Caitlin and Barry started to ring people to invite them to the party. Even though it was a bit late even by their standards. Barry called Joe first.

 **"Hey Joe"**

 **"Hey, Bar. What's up?"** the detective asked.

 **"Well, we bought a new house and we'd like to invite some people over for a little house warming party. Mind getting in touch with my dad and Iris and Eddie?"** the speedster asked.

 **"You bought a house? Damn, next time warn me before you go do something as important as that. Of Course. When and where?"** he asked chuckling

 **"7 PM. I'll send you a map marker for the address. It's still a bit new so I don't know it by heart"** The speedster added.

 **"But it's in town right? We wouldn't be able to make it if it's somewhere in the suburbs"** Joe asked.

 **"No, it's in town, don't worry. About a mile from STAR Labs. You'll be able to get here without a problem. Can I count on you?"** Barry asked his foster father.

 **"Of Course. Except I don't know where Henry is. You might need to go get him if he's in another city"** the old detective replied.

 **"That's fine. Just tell me where he is and I'll go and bring him to your place and he can ride with you. Tell then that it's evening attire, not too fancy, but not casual since there will be other people present"** Barry told the detective.

 **"Ok. I'll talk to them and call you back to tell you who is coming"** he hung up

 **"Joe's coming, he's going to call back about the rest. Who's next?"** Barry asked Caitlin before Kara interjected.

 **"If there is nothing I can do here, I would like to go back and prepare. I want to look good for this party not just my usual attire"** Kara gave a smirk to the speedsters.

 **"Sure. Evening attire, don't forget and take this. It's a little gift from the both of us. We'll see you later Kara"** Caitlin smiled as Supergirl activated her breach generator, gave them a wave and a smile, and was gone.

 **"You gave her the necklace we had made for her didn't you?"** Barry smiled.

 **"I did, just don't tell her it costs close to 2 million dollars. She'll freak"** Caitlin grinned.

 **"Will only do so if she asks"** Barry smiled. **"So, again, who's next?"**

 **"Tina?"** Caitlin asked, he nodded so she got her phone out and dialed a number. **"Hello, Dr. McGee"**

 **"Caitlin, if this isn't the nth time I've told you. Call me Tina"** The voice started to chuckle from the other side of the line

 **"Ok. Tina it is. We're holding a little house warming party after we recently acquired a new apartment and we'd like to ask you to join us if you can"** Caitlin told the doctor.

 **"Of course. What's a little booze between friends"** the voice replied from the other side of the line **"When and where?"**

 **"At 7 PM. I'll text you the address, it's so new we haven't gotten used to it yet"** Caitlin excused herself.

 **"Got it. Formal or Evening wear?"** She asked.

 **"I would guess evening wear? Sorry a bit new to this whole, being rich stuff"** Frost chuckled.

 **"All right then. I'll see you at 7. Say hello to Barry for me"** she closed the line

 **"Anyone else we might have forgotten?"** Barry asked

 **"I don't think so ... no. Joe, Iris, Eddie, Cisco and Bette, Oliver and Felicity, Ray, Thea and Laurel, Henry, Tina and Diggle I think that should be everyone"** Caitlin smiled brightly at him

 **"Guys, we're done. Everything should work just fine now. Had no idea the integration would be so seamless. The computers in your office and the servers are all now connected to the STAR Labs internal network via a VPN that is virtually untraceable and un hackable. Something of my own design. Now if you'll excuse us, we do need to go freshen up and get some new clothes. We can't really show up to the party wearing these old things"** Felicity smiled.

 **"Felicity, we need to go back to our place anyway so you can go there. While we move stuff to this apartment. Ray, do you have what to wear?"** Barry asked knowing that they probably did not seeing as they came here rather fast.

 **"I do. I always take a spare suit on my travels wherever I go so I'm good. Thanks for asking"** he smiled.

 **"All right. Meet back here at 7 then. Apparently in evening attire"** Caitlin said with a weird face. They saw that the elevator was already working accepting all their fingerprints to go up and down without any issues. Barry's phone rang again.

 **"Bar, Eddie and Iris are coming. Henry was in town for a conference, he said that he wanted to visit anyway so he's coming as well. We'll see you at 7"** Joe hung up. Barry grabbed Felicity and they headed back to their little apartment. Felicity went straight to take a shower

 **"I'm going to miss this place, Barry. My whole life was here for the better part of the time I was in Central City. I know buying a larger house is for us, our friends and our family, but it's like, now I'm sad that I'm leaving, you know?"** She told him with watery eyes.

 **"I know the feeling, Cait. Remember when I moved out of Joe's place? I never really told you but … I felt like I left something behind. Even if I never considered it fully home as you know. That room in that house will be something I'm always connected to. Besides, considering there are some things there that we never even took out … I guess it still qualifies as my room"** Barry laughed.

 **"Sorry, I didn't want to get you into nostalgia land. I'm happy that we have our own place now, somewhere we can start out married life together, start a family, just wished I didn't have to leave this small apartment behind, that's all"** she made it clear that she wasn't regretting the choice they made.

 **"Why leave it behind? It's ours anyway. If my dad wants to come live in the city he can come live here and you know you`re always welcome to come visit"** Barry told her pretty bluntly

 **"Huh? It's not ours. Haven't we been paying rent on it?"** she asked surprised.

 **"Well, that's what you get if you leave me to pay the rent. We haven't paid any rent for it ever since I got the money from Eobard. I bought the apartment outright. It's ours just like I told you"** Barry smiled surprised that his fiancée hadn't picked up on the fact that they had more money in the house due to lack of paying rent.

 **"You`re serious, aren't you?"** Caitlin's eyes started to water.

 **"Of course. We don't need to leave anything behind. We can always come back here and spend a few days whenever we get tired of the grand annoying rich people scene that the penthouse represents. Or we can have my dad live here when he comes to town. Or we can just keep the apartment for the hell of it. I'm not selling the apartment we first lived in together as a couple. That's final"** Barry told her **"Too many beautiful memories in here and a broken bed too"** He chuckled.

 **"But, we do have to take some of the stuff to our new home don't we?"** She asked.

 **"Sure, the toiletries and whatever we use on a daily basis. Clothes and stuff and then we can buy new items and leave them here just so they're here if we ever want to come back and spend some time away from the city. Or ... alone"** Barry grinned. **"We're rich, Cait. We can afford two apartments in the city"**

 **"Thank you for this Barry. I would have never thought that you would want to keep this apartment after we got a new home"** She told him and kissed him hard holding him in her arms.

 ** _"You aren't the only one that has beautiful memories tied to this place. I remember your face the first time I walked in here. You had a busted shoulder from crashing into the bathroom door. Remember? The first time we kissed like we meant it, it was right outside this place. The first time we cooked here and we started to have a food battle, our first Christmas here as a couple, which was beautiful in itself, the first time we tried to take a shower together and you pushed me out of the tub by accident because the place was too small causing me to face plant on the pavement. Stuff that I don't want to forget. This little apartment, while it holds a lot of value for you in your life alone, it holds a lot of value for me as the start of our life together"_** He told her mentally while they were kissing.

 ** _"You`re wrong. It doesn't hold value only in reminding me of my life in this city. It reminds me of us as well. Of how we started, of how we evolved. Me from what you would call the cold shy doctor with a professional demeanor to the fact that I can speak in public now and not even care. From a person that had lost her purpose, her brother and the hope of a career who had her boss in a wheelchair and spend 9 months in a coma, to a hero, someone with a goal in life, a passion to do good, to make the world a better place and maybe as a last thing to mention, because I know money doesn't matter, one half of the richest couple in this city. And you. You, my beloved Barry, from the CSI that captured my eyes in his the first time I met you, the one that lost his mother at a tender age only to have his father imprisoned unjustly, to the man that now is a hero, my best friend, my husband to be, the man that I never thought I would meet, my other half and the other half of the richest couple in this city. This is where we changed, this is where we became who we are now. This apartment is the symbol of our growth you could say. Even though I know you still act like a 16 year old when you want to and I still act like a little giddy college girl when I'm with you. This apartment has been an unmovable witness to all of that and more"_** She responded to him and he was surprised. She was perfectly right, this small apartment was all that.

 ** _"I love you, my Caitlin Snow"_** he managed to say

 ** _"I love you too, my Barry Allen"_** she replied. They continued to kiss slowly until their moment was broken by a towel clad Felicity that stood in the bathroom doorway and whistled at them.

 **"You know you two have been kissing for 10 minutes straight right? Do you breathe through your skin or can hold your breaths for a long time? Because I couldn't see any sort of breathing motion, just a lot of … ahem"** she grinned.

 **"You do know you only have a towel on, right? Do you want to lose it?"** Caitlin smirked back at her blonde friend.

 **"You wouldn't dare!"** By the time she finished her sentence Caitlin had a towel in her hand. Barry had turned around knowing what his fiancée might do **"Well, at least Barry turned around"** Felicity commented still a bit unnerved by being naked in the middle of the room.

 **"I can always turn back"** Barry told her but the grin was not visible. Felicity panicked then she realized that he wasn't serious **"Let's leave her to get dressed. You take the shower, Cait. I'm going to go take some of our clothes and other stuff we need back to the penthouse"** Barry told them and he was gone in a flash of lightning with some of their stuff.

 **"I didn't think you'd have the guts to make good on that"** Felicity smiled while putting on some underwear **"What if Barry didn't turn around?"**

 **"He would have anyway. He has too much respect for you to even try that sort of bad joke. You already know that"** Caitlin smirked at her entering the bathroom to take a shower. Coming out in less than 30 seconds in towels as well **"Felicity, I bought a dress for you in case this sort of situation would happen. Let me get it for you"**

 **"How do you even do that? 30 seconds flat for a shower. I wish I could be you"** Felicity grinned and then her face fell when Caitlin came back with the dress. It was a beautiful dark blue dress with a lowered back and not that long. Sleeveless with an acceptable neckline and it was made out of silk.

 **"Here, try it on"** She gave her the dress and went to change herself. Her evening attire was another silk dress, this time black, with a low cut back and a large cut on both sides that showed her beautiful legs. Neckline was low enough to show some chest, but leave everything else to the imagination. Barry came back. He had showered and got into a completely black suit with black shirt and a white tie. He bought Felicity shoes that would go with her dress along with a simple necklace that had an arrow made of green emeralds.

 **"Barry, really? You should keep the presents for your fiancée"** Felicity gasped at the beautiful necklace the speedster put around her neck.

 **"My idea. Don't blame Barry for it"** Caitlin laughed and then she realized that she had around her neck a simple necklace with a ruby heart **"Ah, this really brings back memories of sand and beaches, also a very beautiful birthday surprise. Thank you"** She smiled toward her future husband who whistled.

 **"Well, well, well. Had no idea that my future wife and her best friend cleaned up so well"** The joke warranted him to get hit with two pillows that the two women had thrown at him. **"Shall we go? We'll speed into the apartment and wait for everyone. You two can fix your hair there"** he asked. The two nodded and they flashed out the open window and back to the penthouse. That apartment barely had its door unlocked these days, it was way easier to just go in and out from the window.

It was nearly 7 PM and the guests that were restless started to arrive. As always the first two in the door were Cisco and Bette. He was wearing a three piece dark suit with Bette dawning a lilac colored beautiful evening dress. Cisco had got for her a necklace with amethysts that symbolized the bombs the made when she used her powers.

 **"Pretty classy for something that was Cisco's idea"** Caitlin smirked while looking at the necklace **"I love how it looks"**

 **"He surprised me too. I thought I would get a Pokémon ball for a necklace or a lightsaber"** Bette started to laugh making Cisco cringe a bit.

 **"I would have gone with a Star Gate. That always looked cool in the way I envisioned it"** Felicity commented.

 **"At least he didn't go for a dragon ball. I would have pegged Cisco for a fan"** Caitlin spoke

 **"God, we're such nerds, the fact that we can enumerate all of that, shows just how much Cisco has had an effect on us over time. Oh, but we were all nerds anyway, before his effect ever began affecting us"** Barry commented and face palmed making everyone laugh hard. The guests kept coming. The next person to appear was Ray followed by Tina McGee.

 **"That was a hassle. I had no idea you bought your own private penthouse with fingerprint access"** Tina commented.

 **"Oh god"** Barry realized **"Tina doesn't have a security profile in the STAR Labs mainframe. I'm so sorry, Tina, we didn't want to keep you waiting"**

 **"It's fine, I had no idea I would share the elevator with Ray Palmer though, he seems to be looking pretty sharp for someone who's dead"** She laughed. Her evening dress was simple yet beautiful white in color with a pearl necklace. Ray was wearing his suit which he brought along.

 **"We can fix that after the party. Now that STAR and Mercury have partnered up, Tina will have access to everything that we have, research wise"** Barry smiled toward her.

Team Arrow arrived next straight from the airport. Oliver was wearing a dark green suit, Diggle behind him with a black one. Thea had a long red evening dress about the same shade as her suit and Laurel a black satin dress complete with stilettos.

 **"Well now this is different. Didn't you say a while back that you weren't going to buy a new house?"** Oliver smirked.

 **"At that time we weren't really thinking of having a family, Oliver. Besides, even so now whoever wants to spend the night here, we got rooms for everyone"** Barry replied shaking his hand. The archer went on to hug Caitlin.

 **"This is a really nice place you have here"** Thea commented. **"I see you two decided to go all out when buying an apartment haven't you"**

 **"Well, you know, at least if it's a penthouse, at least it should be one where a madman can't zip line in from the roof and bust through your balcony door"** Felicity chuckled to which Thea promptly nodded starting to laugh. Diggle was just walking around, he knew Oliver back in the days when he was just another rich kid he had to guard, but this was different. Laurel went straight to the balcony shaking Barry's hand and hugging Caitlin. She greeted the other guests. Some of which she knew some of which she didn't.

 **"I'll make the introductions when everyone is here"** Barry spoke as the doors to the elevator were opening once again. Iris and Eddie along with Joe and Henry came out of the elevator.

 **"Wow, this is something else. You told us you bought an apartment, not a mansion in the sky"** Eddie commented. He shook Barry's hand sternly.

 **"You got that right, mansion in the sky is correct considering the size of this place"** Iris smiled **"Congratulations you two"** Joe and Henry were the most surprised. Joe looked around measuring the place. He didn't say anything to anyone. Except polite greetings all around to the people that he knew or didn't know. He looked at Barry and Caitlin and how much they had changed ever since Barry moved out from his house. True to her promise Caitlin did bring Barry back and they spent the night at his place whenever he was feeling alone, but he already knew that they could never go back to being like they were before then. Barry had grown up.

Henry however was stunned. He had seen his boy go from Joe's room and being a CSI, to this larger than life penthouse that he had bought with the woman he loved and the one which he was going to marry and being the head of a chain on multimillion research laboratories that were hell bent on making the world a better place. Nobody was feeling as proud as him about his boy right now.

 **"Hello, Caitlin** " the man hugged his soon to be daughter in law **"Hey, slugger"** he greeted his son hugging him tightly.

 **"Hey, Henry. Glad you could join us"** Caitlin smiled at him.

 **"Hey, Dad. Didn't know you were in town. Joe told us that you wanted to drop in"** Barry smiled toward his father.

 **"Right. I wanted to surprise you. Except instead you surprised me"** The old man hugged his son again.

 **"Everyone from this universe seems to be here, Barry. I think it's time we set a few things straight before everyone starts to think they`re crazy or that we need to be taken to the Iron Heights Mentally insane division"** Caitlin told her fiancée.

 **"What do you mean by … this universe?"** Tina asked quite surprised.

 **"Right"** Said Barry **"Before more guests arrive, this statement is true. There are a lot of other universes out there. An infinity in fact. For whoever does know, the Multiverse theory is true. The next guests that are due to arrive are from different universes. Oh and, if you see another Harrison Wells, don't shoot him"** Barry smirked. **"Also step away from the center of the room"** All of the people moved to the sides some already knowing, other wondering what was Barry talking about. They freed up the center in the nick of time. A blue swirling vortex appeared in the middle of the room with three people coming out of it. Kara, looking beautiful with her golden locks let down without her glasses and wearing the necklace Caitlin gave her. She was dawning a high cut black evening dress with cuts on the side which hugged her curves with black heels. Alex, in a dark red evening dress with red heels and Winn, with a two piece black suit over a white shirt. Most of the room was already used to the phenomenon, the rest looked at the new guests and the way they arrived with awe.

 **"Everyone, I want you to meet Kara Danvers, her sister Alex and Winn Schott. They come from what our sensors call Earth 38"** Barry introduced them to the group. Tina most of all was baffled. She had no idea that the Multiverse theory could be true, but having Barry and Caitlin travel to multiple universes, that in her mind was truly astounding. **"Cisco, I think it's time we get our other guests here too"** the engineer agreed and put on his glasses and gloves opening another rift in the middle of the room through which another three people appeared.

 **"Everyone knows Harrison Wells. But this one is a good guy not our jerk. Jesse Wells, his daughter and Wally West. Joe's son from ... earth two"** Caitlin concluded as Cisco closed the portal that brought them here in the first place **"Like I said, don't shoot this Harry. He is the good guy. Him and Jesse helped us a lot in our prospects against Zoom"** Harry and Wally were dressed sharply and Jesse was wearing a nice green dress and was holding Wally's hand as they moved around the room. They brought wine and beer, also some food that Barry managed to pick up literally minutes before the guests started to arrive. The person that was most surprised of everything was probably Iris. When Barry introduced Wally her face froze in disbelief. She had not seen him because she rarely dropped by at Joe's these days most of the time meeting in the city. While Wally was here, he did not meet her and didn't really ask. He had a bit of an issue with his metahuman sister from Earth two who was a murderer. Joe took it upon himself to explain to her what was happening.

Barry and Caitlin went around the room and made complete introductions so that everyone knew who everyone was. The most surprised out of them wall was in fact Tina which told Barry that she will need to have a little chat with them some other time, but in other fact she was actually enjoying Henry Allen's company. The two had been chatting separately since they arrived.

Harry took a side and started talking to Cisco and Bette. Winn soon joined them and they started talking tech since he was fascinated by all the things Cisco managed to put on Kara's suit. Alex found a place with Joe and Eddie that were talking about police stuff and everything that they could remember. Iris had a women's conference in another corner with Felicity, Thea and Laurel.

Oliver and Diggle had joined Henry Allen and Tina in a discussion about the multiverse. Jesse and Wally had made themselves unseen.

Caitlin and Barry stepped outside with Kara following them. The necklace that Caitlin gave her was a complete replica of the symbol that she had on her chest. With red and blue stones and white all around.

 **"I have to thank you for this"** She pointed at the necklace she was wearing.

 **"Don't worry about it. We thought you might like to have something to have your shield on it even if people here don't understand what it means"** Barry commented. **"Thank you for the help this morning with the dish"**

 **"No problem. It's strange. I enjoy being with you guys very much. My family from another earth you could say and yes I know it sound corny"** the blonde smiled **"Now spill it you two. How much did this necklace cost? I'm not blind, I gave it a once over with my vision, perfectly cut stones and flawless work"** Kara asked bluntly.

 **"About two mil. Give or take"** Barry smiled **"We thought to give you something special, but since we wanted to use the colors on your shield. Well we had to get that right and there we have it. It doesn't sound corny. As much as some people here would not believe, besides your sister and Winn which we consider friends, also Tina which from our biggest competitor turned out to be a good friend, everyone, including you is considered family"**

 **"Yeah. We kind of figured that we should give you a nice present for all the help you provided in solving our own issues. Even though you told us that just being here with us is something you enjoy"** Caitlin added.

 **"Well, thank you for being honest with me. I love it. Especially the attention to the symbol itself, since it is my family shield, which means a lot. Thank you. Although I will be only able to wear it with you. If I suddenly start to wear a necklace with my shield on it as Kara Danvers I don't even think the glasses will keep my identity a secret. As you might remember we have some pretty sharp people on that earth"** Kara said smiling giving them both a large warm hug. The three went back inside and Barry picked up a glass and chimed with it stopping all the discussions in the room.

 **"Since I suck at speeches, as at least one of you knows** " Caitlin started to chuckle **"You might have wondered why we called you all here. Nothing's burning, earth two isn't splitting at either end,"** Harry, Wally and Jesse chuckled at tha **t "aliens don't want to blow up earth 38 or kill every human on the planet,"** It was Kara and Alex's turn along with Winn to chuckle **"or a crazy speedster wants to destroy the multiverse and steal my speed"** Cisco and Bette started to smile **"Tonight is just ... simply a reunion of friends and family. We decided to get another house"** Barry got interrupted by Cisco

 **"You mean a palace"**

 **"As I was saying"** the speedster cleared his throat and continued **"before I was so rudely interrupted, by one part of that family, we decided to get another house and we invited all of our friends and family to share the happiness with us. Remember this, all of you who are here, are either family, or very close friends. Dark times have brought us together and I hope better times will see us stay together. Cheers everyone. To Friends and Family!"** Barry raised his glass and everyone did the same

 **"To Friends and Family"** the responses came from the room. Everyone was smiling and holding a glass. Barry and Caitlin looked around the room

 ** _"Think it would have been too much if you just said to family?"_** Caitlin asked him mentally

 ** _"I don't know how some people would have reacted to be honest, but you are right, we do consider them our family. Even Harry who's a jerk. All the people here, well if I am to be fair, we don't really know Kara's sister that well but she seems nice, with her exception and Winn, are our family"_** the answer came.

 ** _"I find it surprising that we consider Kara family, considering we met her a few months ago. We have been through so much and we are so alike that we have begun to consider her family. It is how it is"_** Caitlin smiled at her fiancée.

 ** _"I'm surprised we got to consider Tina a good friend so quickly. She was just a competitor until not so long ago"_** Barry quipped

 ** _"And boy was Harry a jerk at the start and now he's part of this"_** Caitlin chuckled

 ** _"To us. And our crazy over the top family"_** Barry raised his glass

 ** _"To us. This crazy over the top family and our own that will come in time"_** she raised her glass to his.


	44. Aftermath

The party was a big success. People that weren't even of this earth were received as they were part of the group that helped save it. Henry and Tina connected almost instantly, talking about what had happened and Henry explaining in his own words the adventures of the speedsters in other universes, as much as he knew anyway. The physicist was really interested even over the small adventures and the fact that Henry knew quite a lot even if he didn't say anything usually.

Ray got his wish, he wanted to know who and what Kara was. The speedsters let her decide if she would be straight forward with her powers and she was. The more the told the scientist the larger his surprise became. Another surprise was the fact that the same Ray asked Thea to come to Barry and Caitlin's wedding with him and in front of Oliver no less. The archer commented something about, first Felicity, now Thea, but seeing his sister accept and with a rather large smile on her face as well he stopped his interference. He knew that Thea was old enough to make her own choices, even though the men she chose until now were … not so fortunate developments.

Laurel seemed to get along just fine with Alex. They were talking about prospects and how it was to be DA. Soon the discussion was joined by Joe and Eddie, the latter leaving his wife to talk to Wally of all people. She wanted to get to know her brother from another earth better. Winn and Cisco were discussing tech along with Felicity and Harry. The alcohol seemed to have gotten to then faster than they could count. Out on the balcony, the " _we cannot get drunk"_ brigade was chatting along with Oliver.

 **"It was a really nice idea to throw this party. It can give us a chance to reconnect outside our usual … terms of endearment. Kind of reminds me of that time you came to me for help with Savage"** Oliver commented looking at the three

 **"Yeah. Besides, now that our apartment is bigger than your Arrow Cave we can always hold meetings here"** Barry smirked.

 **"I wish. The mayoral job is getting to me. Being that during the day and trying to save the city at night … not enough sleep. Of course Green Arrow work will always come first, but I feel like I can make a difference now as Oliver Queen too"** He sighed.

 **"Oliver, double lives where you actually have to work at your job can be demanding. I'm an alien and I don't really require much rest due to how my body works, but sometimes even I have periods where I need to just crash and recover the hours that I have missed over the weeks"** Kara told the archer.

 **"Ollie, Kara is right. Do as much as you can, but don't burn yourself out. You won't be of use to anyone if the mayor and the Green Arrow take a sabbatical because they're sick"** Caitlin smiled.

 **"Thank you for your concern. I'll try to balance the hours to come out on top"** Oliver told them truthfully. He was always alone, nobody there to care about if he lives or dies, then there was Diggle, then Felicity and with him meeting Barry and Caitlin a whole set of people who he considered friends.

 **"I guess now I know why Tina wants to speak to me after this. She's a physicist and we kept the whole alternate universe thing from her. I suspect were going to get a little flak for that"** Barry smiled.

 **"By the way. Felicity mentioned that she wanted to go look for dresses tomorrow? Is that a thing or …?"** Kara asked making Barry lift his shoulders looking at Caitlin

 **"Well, if you could stay then yeah, we can go look at dresses"** She answered

 **"That won't be a problem. We don't really work weekends. Except when Ms. Grant wants something reported on Supergirl, but since Supergirl is out of town, there won't be much reporting about her exploits now would it"** Kara smirked.

Everyone had a blast at the friendly meet up they did. By the end of the evening everyone knew everyone and they seemed comfortable to discuss around. It was 3 in the morning when they decided to break it up. Cisco made a breach back to earth 38 for Alex and Winn. Kara told then that she would be staying another day to go dress fitting with the girls. Another breach was opened for Harry and his daughter, Wally deciding to spend a little more time on this earth getting to know Iris. It turned out that his sister on the other Earth was someone that he didn't like that much, with good reason, but meeting her here changed his opinion. Barry, Caitlin and Kara took home Joe, Iris and Eddie. Tina followed as well as Henry who was taken back to Joe's place. Bette and Cisco were the last to go since their place was the closest between the people that had places to live in Central City.

 **"So, who takes what?"** Laurel managed to speak. She did have quite a considerable amount to drink, but not enough to get her plastered.

 **"You can all go and pick a room to sleep in. There are 6 of us. Kara, Thea, Diggle, Laurel, Felicity and Oliver. To be fair I'll count Felicity and Oliver as 1 so there's 5 of us. There are 6 rooms except the master bedroom which is ours. Pick and choose"** Barry snickered.

 **"Rich people with apartments larger than most suburban houses"** Diggle commented prompting a smirk from Oliver.

 **"How about Queen Mansion?"** He asked.

 **"That might still be smaller than this penthouse"** Diggle snickered. Everyone picked a room and they went to sleep.

The next morning, even thought they had 4 bathrooms waking up was more of a ruckus than usual. Barry and Caitlin had their shower in their own private bathroom when they woke up. As usual since he didn't have Arrow business Oliver had woken up quite early and started cooking food for everyone. This seemed strangely reminiscing of the time they were in their small apartment with him coming to visit

 ** _"See? Even if we have this huge penthouse nothing really changes"_** Barry commented toward his fiancée who gave him a bright smile.

 ** _"Apparently not. Oliver is still making pancakes and eggs first thing in the morning. I wonder what Kara is going to say to that"_** Caitlin snickered. Kara didn't say anything actually the smell of coffee draw everyone in in their pajamas around the table. The coffee was getting cold, which was no problem for Supergirl who shot two heat beams out of her eyes warming it up again.

 **"So, heat vision huh?"** Diggle commented holding a piece of bread in his hand

 **"Yea, I used to be an office manager so I would bring coffee to my boss. She always wanted it a specific temperature so … I got very proficient at heating up coffee to that certain fixed temperature"** Kara smiled.

 **"Good morning, everyone"** Barry and Caitlin greeted their guests as they came down the stairs **"How did you rest?"** Barry asked.

 **"Best night's sleep I've had in a few weeks"** Oliver commented with a smirk.

 **"Really? Because the noises that kept coming from your room at around 3 AM would say otherwise. I could swear on Rao that you were awake"** Kara cut in prompting an ice cold glare from the archer.

 **"Kara, you have super hearing. None of us could hear anything"** Caitlin replied starting to chuckle.

 **"Your bedroom in on the other side of the house. How could you hear anything anyway?"** Laurel commented. Everybody laughed seeing Felicity turning red and Oliver not saying another word.

 **"I still remember that time when you came and made food in the small apartment Oliver. Kara did the exact same thing one night she stayed over. We thought you were going to fight on who gets to cook"** Barry laughed making Oliver chuckle.

 **"I would have cooked when I woke up, except for some reason I slept so well that I didn't hear anything in the house after I completely fell asleep. When I did come down, Oliver was already cooking so there was no point in me doing anything"** Kara smiled at the couple that was grinning. Everyone ate and they started making plans about their day. Thea, Diggle and Laurel had to head back to Star City. Oliver thanked the couple for inviting him and realized he had to go back too. Even if it was Sunday, he still had some mayoral duties to take care of with the help of Thea.

 **"You can go back to the airport guys. I had the jet get refueled and it's waiting for you. We'll bring Felicity back either today or tomorrow. Since it just takes us 15 minutes to get there"** Barry told them.

 **"All right. Well I guess we'll see you at the wedding then won't we"** Oliver smiled. **"Or do you want a bachelor party?"** He smirked.

 **"No that's fine. Wedding is good. I'd rather have my bachelor party with just one person if you don't mind"** Barry grinned and looked at Caitlin who started to blush. Everyone left, Caitlin had called a car for them to be taken to the airport. The only four people that were left were the two speedsters, Kara and Felicity.

 **"I guess we should call Iris and Bette and go out to look for your dress and our dresses shouldn't we"** Kara smiled. Barry's phone rang.

 **"Morning Cisco, I was about to call you. Is Bette around?"** he asked putting the phone on speaker so everyone could hear.

 **"Bette is still at home. I'm at STAR Labs. I received a ping about some unusual activity that was going on in the mountains and around. I think you should come see this"** He replied.

 **"But, we're going out dress shopping today"** Caitlin told the engineer.

 **"Well, unless you want to buy Barry a dress, he doesn't have to come. Trust me it's rather important and I would rather not talk about it on the phone, doesn't matter how secure the line is"** Cisco had an ominous tone in his voice.

 **"Ok. Are you going to be all right without me?"** Barry asked.

 **"Yeah. Go. You can fill me in later. Cisco sounds pretty worried. I'll call Iris and Bette and go shopping. After that I'll meet you either at STAR or we'll think of something"** Caitlin told him. She had heard that tone before in the engineer's voice and usually it meant nothing good.

 **"Just one question, since I don't really want to bring a date to the wedding, for obvious reasons, mind if bring my cousin?"** Kara asked

 **"No, of course we don't. If he wants to come he's welcome. Any family of yours is welcome Kara, you know that doesn't matter if they are from here or from far away"** Barry responded and Caitlin nodded. The former sped out of the house, while the girls were starting to make calls.

Barry made it to STAR after a few minutes and stopped in the cortex where Cisco was fidgeting and looking at some footage from the news and some footage that he got off the cameras in some remote town near the mountains.

 **"It seems that we might have another rogue speedster on our hands. Check this out"** Cisco told Barry pointing at 3 frames of a piece of footage **"this is less than a fraction of a second. The guy is fast"** He pointed out the blur to Barry

 **"He has orange lightning just like me. But his suit seems different. More dark and with something that is not a mask. Maybe a cowl?"** Barry tried to describe what he saw.

 **"I do not know, but he's fast. If we take this video as a reference and the way he appears in each frame, this guy seems to be way faster than you. At least 3 times as fast and we don't even know if he was running at top speed"** Cisco commented and now Barry could see why he was so worried.

 **"Well, Caitlin and the rest are busy buying dresses so … maybe I should run out to there and check the place out?"** Barry asked his friend who immediately cut him off.

 **"No. Don't even think about that. If he is evil then you don't stand a chance without Frost. To be fair, if he is indeed that fast, you both alone don't stand a chance either way. Going both however bolsters your chances, because Caitlin can slow him, maybe even enough for you to get some pretty good punches in"** Cisco was speaking the truth.

 **"Then there's nothing we can really do. I guess monitor the situation and that's about it. To be honest, I don't see a problem. He hasn't hurt anyone and he seems to just keep around that part of the mountains. Let's let it go for now, Cisco. Monitor his activities with the satellites, but that's it. Maybe he's just a speedster who's just come into his power and just wants to help. We don't know that he's evil"** Barry reasoned with his friend.

 **"I guess you`re right. Sorry for dragging you out here for this. I'll keep an eye on him"** Cisco agreed

 **"Are you kidding? As much as I would want to see Cait try on different things, I didn't want to spend 10 hours looking for dresses. You are a lifesaver man. Now how about a round of HALO? I don't think the girls will be back too soon from their shopping trip"** Barry laughed.

 **"Oh, I know you'd like to see Caitlin try on different things. Especially the wedding lingerie"** Cisco gave him a large smirk **"You`re on. Gaming seems appropriate to ease the nerves"** the engineer smiled as both of them went to the break room to fire up a game. While they were playing however the thought still lingered in Barry's mind. A speedster that was way faster than they were that was staying close to the ground, not giving away his identity and maybe even saving people. That was something he had not expected.

On the other side of town the four women met in front of the most exclusive shopping center Central City had. The large complex contained everything from cars, indoor and outdoor housing stuff, to suits and wedding dresses.

 **"You want to shop here?"** Iris asked looking at the large building. **"You do know that everything you find will more than likely be more than expensive and maybe not even that good"**

 **"I don't think expensive is a problem and besides this is where I made the reservation at"** Felicity smiled toward her.

 **"Oh man, I keep forgetting these two are filthy rich"** she commented. **"To be honest all the money didn't change who you are"**

 **"Well, maybe while we're here we can find you a dress too, Felicity"** Caitlin smiled **"Just so I can make this torture a little bit bearable"**

 **"Wow, I don't think I've ever met someone who gets so miserable when has to buy her own wedding dress and money is no problem"** Bette smirked

 **"It's not that. Barry and I are used to do things at super speed. Sitting in a shop trying dresses for a few hours is not my idea of super speed, you know?"** Caitlin explained **"I guess I have little patience when it comes to … waiting"**

 **"Who says you can't. We can request a large fitting room, which I'm sure these expensive stores have and you can change in and out like you usually do. Unless you need help, in which case you might just have to suffer a while longer"** Felicity laughed.

The four women went into the largest bridal shop there was and started to look at dresses. The theme was still supposed to be white and red. Caitlin would get a white dress and red dresses for the bridesmaids. She knew that somehow they were supposed to look worse than her, to show how beautiful she was, but she knew better. Barry would find her beautiful in anything as for attracting the attention of the others, that's not what she was really going for. There was a saving grace for this trip. She knew exactly what she wanted to wear. There were hundreds of dresses on mannequins and on hangers all over the store. A saleswoman approached them

 **"Are you here for the Snow appointment?"** she says glancing at the clip board she has in her hands

 **"Yes, that would be me. I'm getting married first and sometime at a later date my friend and maid of honor, Mr. Smoak over here is getting married herself. So, while we're here, we shall be looking for a wedding dress for her as well"** Caitlin smirked at Felicity

 **"Never let a friend suffer alone, that's what I always say"** the blonde woman returns a smile

 **"Delighted to meet you. My name is Cassie. Let me bring you to the large dressing room in the back that we used for large bridal parties and we can start trying on dresses. Ms. Snow, Ms. Smoak, do you have specific ideas of what sort of wedding dresses would you want?"** the saleswoman introduced herself and inquired for preferences

 **"Something classy and traditional for me"** Caitlin replied.

 **"I would say strapless and with a more intricate design"** Felicity stated

 **"Good. I have lots of options that fit into those two categories. And for the bridesmaid dresses color/ style?"** Cassie inquired

 **"Mine should be shades of red"** The speedster responded to the woman

 **"Mine would be dark green, but you can skip those, there is one person only from my bridal party here that can try them on. I sent the others home without thinking"** the blonde stated.

 **"All right, give me 10 minutes"** the saleswoman excused herself and left

 **"What? If she gets red dresses then it's only normal that I get dark green. We're keeping a theme here"** Felicity grinned making everyone in the fitting room laugh. The women sat and talked among themselves while waiting for Cassie which turns up even sooner than she said pushing two racks, one with 5 white dresses and another one with about 10 different red dresses.

 **"I will leave them here for you to try them on. When you have found the one you want or if you didn't and you want to keep searching, come get me"** Cassie said and left the fitting room.

 **"Let's get started, then"** Caitlin smirked and looked over at the white dress rack. She saw immediately which her type was. In a matter of seconds she flashed in the first one. The cut was not pleasing. Something about the dress made her feel caught. After a few seconds she changed the dress with the second one. This one felt better but it looked awful on her for some reason. The third dress was the charm she looked at herself in the mirror

 **"Ok, this is definitely it. I'm going to wait to see how it looks with the veil, but this is definitely it"** The dress was a long pearl white with thick straps, showing very little cleavage and a simple eggshell white sash that was emphasizing her waist. She smiled the rest of the women were already used to her high speed, even more, they requested that she would help them change at high speed All except Kara who could do that all on her own. Next was Felicity. Caitlin sped her into her first dress.

 **"Not something I would wear. Look at that plunging neckline"** Felicity grinned.

 **"Looks like something out of showgirls. I think it's a bit much"** Bette commented. Felicity agreed so Caitlin then sped her into her second dress.

 **"Whoa"** the blonde girl squealed looked at herself in the mirror. **"This looks … amazing. What do you guys think?"** most the other girls nodded silently. This one was perfect for her frame, a strapless ball-gown that is covered in crystals over the bodice of the dress and the lower part of the dress has flowery embroidery and lace all over it.

 **"That looks like something you should wear, no question about that"** Caitlin smiled at her maid of honor. **"All right, who's next in the non-super powered category?"** Frost asked.

 **"I'll take the next one, Caitlin. You have the dress shoes on they started smoking. Let them cool down and then you can do the next one"** Kara grinned. Bette stepped forward.

 **"I offer myself as tribute"** she cracked and Kara immediately sped her into a red dress she had picked beforehand. The dress was a knee length dark cherry red number, off the shoulders and showed a bit of her cleavage **"This is nice. I like how it looks"** she offered to the group taking a sash of matching color and tied it on the side.

 **"Damn, girl, you trying to give Cisco a heart attack?"** Felicity commented proving a snicker from the other women.

 **"I'm guessing she does that pretty often"** Caitlin quipped making Bette blush.

 **"OK, you convinced me. This is the one I'm getting"** she smiled and stood at the side

 **"I'll be next. Maybe when I finish Caitlin's shoes would have cooled enough to help Iris change"** Kara spoke and then sped into one of the remaining dresses. The strange design didn't seem to fit her at all. She turned to the group and saw that three of them had a large thumbs down. So large that it was obvious that didn't work. The second dress was no better it was a little shorter then she would have liked. She was still shy about how she looked even with only women in the room, at the wedding there would have been other people. The third dress looked like was a keeper.

 **"How about this. It seems to be like it's actually made for me"** the alien commented. Looking at herself in the mirror the belt she grabbed tied in the back.

 **"Super ass there, Kara"** Felicity grinned. The other women agreed that she looked beautiful in what she picked this time. Her dress was a blood red one strap dress with a small bow on the shoulder that blended into a rose shape.

 **"Ok this is definitely mine then"** Kara told the rest and stepped aside. Iris was next and Caitlin's shoes weren't smoking anymore. Iris got her eyes on something and pointed out to Caitlin who had her dressed in less than 2 seconds.

 **"I have no idea how you managed to get used to this. This speed change is amazing"** she told the speedster who was grinning next to her. She looked in the mirror, this was something she liked. It was a bit different from the others. The piece was a knee length halter top tight around her upper body and loose around her lower body, almost fluffy. She took a belt herself and tied it on a side. **"This one's mine"** she told the group who had nothing to comment. The woman looked beautiful in what she had picked.

 **"Felicity? What do you want for your maid of honor dress?"** Caitlin asked her friend that was already dressed in another wedding dress.

 **"I'll take the design that Kara has except make it strapless and I'm good"** The blonde replied. They called Cassie back in and she fitted the two brides with veils. The two looked in the mirror then looked at each other, then back in the mirror. Caitlin didn't think much of this small ritual but now her eyes were watering, just like Felicity's near her. The two turned around to the surprised faces of the other three.

 **"I love this one. This is my one"** Felicity smiled brightly. The veil added completeness to the dress and in Caitlin's case she wanted something special.

 **"I'll take it. Cassie, can you have this veil outfitted with blue white snowflakes?"** she asked.

 **"Of course mam, may I ask why though?"** the saleswoman inquired

 **"You do remember what my last name is, do you not? It has something to do with the fact that the last day I will wear this veil is the last day that my last name will be Snow"** she commented. **"After that day, I will finally be Caitlin Allen"**

 **"Allen? As in ... Barry Allen?"** the woman inquired with large eyes.

 **"Yes, I'm his fiancée"** She replied without even wincing.

 **"Ah. That makes sense, I was about to warn you that those two dresses are … pretty expensive. I don't think I have to mention that to a half of the richest couple in Central City"** the saleswoman smiled.

 **"No you do not. Put all this together and on my card. Girls, you tell them where you want the dresses delivered. Kara, I'll have yours delivered at our place for … obvious reasons"** the speedster told her. She agreed. Kara knew that there wasn't an interdimensional courier service invented ... or probably would never be invented. The women went back to the changing room Kara and Caitlin speeding them back into their original clothes. Cassie was bluntly surprised when all of them came out in normal clothes about 2 minutes later. Everyone gave their address to where the dresses should be delivered. Felicity put the address in Star City as her destination. She thought that it would be a good idea to not show her own fiancée the dress she bought for her own wedding.

 **"Caitlin, you know you didn't have to pay for my dress too, right? After the hefty bonuses I received from STAR West I could have afforded it without a problem"** Felicity relayed

 **"It's fine, I know where most of your money goes these days. Magnetic arrows? Really?"** Caitlin smirked at her friend and then gave her a hug.

 **"Well, you know. Still thank you for the beautiful dress"** She gave Caitlin a hug. Everyone else thanked her for their own dresses. They knew how it was usually, the bridesmaids had weird or downright ugly dresses that they didn't like. Caitlin didn't care about making herself beautiful, she wanted to make them beautiful as well and with those dresses she managed that without a problem. Caitlin proposed they go out for a drink, but then realized that all of the others had their own jobs to contend to and it was already afternoon. They decided that the booze would be well deserved for another time and they all headed back to the labs.

Back in the Cortex where Cisco and Barry were playing Halo for the last two hours an alarm started to blare. It was surprising because that alarm only meant that there was a metahuman attack somewhere and they had dealt with that without problem. It turned out to be the program that Cisco wrote to track that other unknown speedster. The cameras in the city already tracked him. There was an explosion at one of the chemical plants in that town and via the satellite the two were watching as the people were getting pulled out of the fire two at a time.

 **"See? We're like conditioned to think that whoever is a speedster that we don't know is automatically evil. The guy is getting people out of burning buildings. If that isn't something worthy of a hero then I don't know what is"** Barry commented.

 **"You might be right. At least new we've seen with our own eyes that he is not evil. Unless that explosion at the plant was his fault"** Cisco spoke

 **"Even if it was, all the psychos we dealt with in the past would have left all those people to die. Horribly"** the speedster replied to his friend.

 **"Well, to be fair almost all the speedsters that we had as enemies were psychos. So I guess him saving people is a good thing. So what do we do?"** the engineer asked.

 **"Simple. We do nothing. I'm sure that reports about Flash and Frost have been sent nationwide already. He knows where to find us if he wants. He might just be someone who wants to be left alone and to just help people when he can. We can't adopt someone on this team, if he's a loner"** Barry concluded.

 **"No, we can't. I guess that's that. We just keep an eye on him and see where he goes from there"** Cisco agreed **"So what do we do now? The girls don't seem to have returned. Or even if they did you'd have gotten a text"**

 **"Medal of Honor next then?"** Barry grinned

 **"Medal of Honor it is"** Cisco replied, but before they managed to fire up the game, Caitlin and Felicity were standing in the doorway with Bette grinning behind them.

 **"So … the great emergency was the fact that you wanted to ditch us and play games?"** Caitlin said with a bit of a frown.

 **"Not at all. The great emergency wasn't actually an emergency. Cisco spotted a new speedster. Automatically since most of the speedsters we did not know before they became fast were… well psychos, Cisco thought it would be best if we keep an eye on him. So in between Halo and other games we have been running back and forth to the cortex whenever he appeared"** Barry offered to the women that were now stunned.

 **"So ... what can you tell us about this new player on the scene?"** Bette asked. As always she had her own security concerns and a new speedster might have been a risk.

 **"Well, we say him pull people out of a burning building. So I guess he's not a monster like the others we have met. Which I could say that is pretty good. Beside that we don't know much. He has orange lightning like I do and seems to have a black suit kind of like Zoom"** the speedster replied.

 **"How did your trip go? Did you find what you wanted?"** Barry asked his fiancée.

 **"Yes. I did. You'll get to see it at the wedding. No peeking"** Caitlin laughed.

 **"I'm not going to peek, but whatever you bought I'm sure you will look beautiful in it. Just like you do in anything else you wear or … not wear, as the case may be"** Barry gave her a smile that slowly turned into a grin.

 **"Well, I think it's time I head home guys. This was actually fun. I'll be back for the wedding and I will bring my cousin with me"** Kara told the group **"Take care everyone. See you in a while"** She pressed the belt buckle that she had taken off her suit and the usual breach opened in the middle of the room and she went through it waving goodbye to everyone.

 **"I guess it would be time for me to go as well. I took time off work to come with you to buy our dresses so I have a few articles that need to be turned in tomorrow"** Iris smiled and she was gone as well.

 **"So, Felicity, I hope you didn't just choose a bridesmaid dress yourself. You did have the foresight to get your own dress, right?"** Barry smiled looking at the blonde.

 **"She did indeed. She didn't want to at first but all the girls kind of went on her and she finally got something she liked"** Caitlin grinned at the blonde.

 **"Yeah, well try to say no to a bunch of women that had put their heads together on something and you will face their wrath"** Felicity smiled **"With that said, I already had that dress be delivered to Star City and I should go as well. Will one of you take me back to Star or should I call the jet?"** Felicity asked.

 **"I'll take her, Cait. You`ve already spend enough energy going shopping. I'll be back in 30. You can keep Cisco company while I'm gone"** Barry smiled and grabbed Felicity and he was gone. Caitlin sat on the couch next to Cisco.

 **"Hey, Cisco, mind if I ask you something?"** Caitlin didn't want to pry even if Cisco was her best friend.

 **"Caitlin, you know you can ask me anything, doesn't matter what it is"** the engineer put down the controller and looked at her.

 **"Well, I wondered how thing are going with you and Bette. You seem to be with her all the time, we did catch you kissing and we already know you snog around the lab. Just don't know more than that"** Caitlin stated bluntly

 **"Well, we have moved in together for a while now. We have been going out ever since you did if not before. But if you`re asking something else, then no. At the moment we're just boyfriend and girlfriend"** Cisco replied not knowing why Caitlin was so interested in his love life.

 **"Wow that was something. That actually shows how little we talk these days. Although we kind of noticed you two spend a lot of time together. Remember when you said that time that nobody could like a nerd like you huh? And to be fair that first impression you made on her I just thought she would tell you some…nasty things"** Caitlin laughed remembering his first reaction when he met Bette

 **"Hey, I'm a nerd. I have no skills when it comes to women. I have failed in being suave on more than one occasion. I ever called Kara a hottie. Even if she is. With Bette it was different. We just worked together and at one point … we were going out on a date. You could say we just clicked"** Cisco smiled at Caitlin

 **"I'm glad you actually found someone for yourself Cisco"** she replied to her friend **"You might be a nerd, but you`re really a nice guy"**

 **"Look who's talking. Lady Snow, queen of ice, now filthy rich and found a man that wants to marry her. That would be something, but she wants to marry him too"** Cisco grinned at Caitlin being careful enough of his surroundings to duck if she threw any sort of ice daggers at him.

 **"I know. I didn't even think that could ever happen. Barry… well he's the guy I always wanted. Nice, polite, loving, wants me for me, caring. You know the history I have with relationships. Before I met Barry I actually gave up on finding someone to call my own"** Caitlin told her friend.

 **"Then, the lightning happened. I was honestly surprised that Barry would stay in the lab and was so worried about your wellbeing, considering he knew you for ... what ... all of one day?"** the engineer smiled.

 **"I know. He helped immensely when he came in my dreams and kept me sane. I think I might have gone gaga If I would have remained stuck in the void I was in before Barry came"** Caitlin answered

 **"To be fair, that vortex was wicked cool. Except it didn't have much in the way of ... depth. It looked like it went on forever"** A voice behind them was heard. It was Barry who came back from his trip taking back Felicity to Star City.

 **"The fact that we got to talk kept me going as well. When I saw you in that bed after I woke up I thought that you were gone. The fact that I was able to talk to you that night strengthened my resolve. I knew you were alive and I had to get you out"** Barry explained to both of them as he came and sat down on the sofa next to Caitlin.

 **"Now that's a definitively better story than me and Bette"** Cisco grinned.

 **"You might think so, but to you, your story is better. Our story is ours and it's not even normal"** Caitlin replied.

 **"Well, it's time to go home to my baby"** Cisco smiled at the two **"Unless you want to stay here and play a few multiplayer rounds of something?"**

 **"I think videogames have taken me away from my wonderful future wife enough for today. Take care Cisco, we'll see you tomorrow"** Barry told the engineer as they flashed out of the labs and back into the penthouse. They both got a glass of wine and stepped out on the balcony to watch the sunset. Barry's hand was around her waist and her head was on his shoulder.

 **"I think we should definitely hire a wedding planner. We have enough on our plate to make all the wedding plans ourselves"** Barry told her kissing her lips softly **"Unless you want to take that into our own hands?"**

 **"Barry, choosing is fine, but planning every little thing? We still have to make sure STAR West finishes some things, we have that armor that Cisco was talking about for what we requested the power cells, the plans for the skin grafts that are in the works. They were right, we act like we've been married for a long time now. I just want to be married to the man that I love"** Caitlin told her fiancée

 **"That's what I want as well. Maybe we should just run to Vegas and get married there"** The speedster commented

 **"We could do that. Or we can just keep the wedding like it is and use it as an excuse to get all our friends together?"** Caitlin realized

 **"Then let's power through this and get married and use the party to spend times with all our friends and well … whoever else decided to show up"** Barry smiled at her.

 **"God I hope we don't get paparazzi at the wedding. You know, since now we're basically public figures and rich"** Caitlin said that with a bit of disdain in her voice.

 **"I don't think they will manage. Not with Bette's security team. Besides, they don't even know where the event is being held"** he responded.

 **"It'll be all right"** Caitlin managed to speak with Barry smiling at her echoing her words

 **"No, Cait. It already is so much more than all right. It's going to be amazing"** He grabs her gently by the waist kissing her. Her hands moved around his neck as they remain trapped in their passionate kiss till well after the sun had gone down from the sky

* * *

AN : Thank you for all the reviews. I hope you like the latest installments. Keep an eye on next week's chapter (s). I suspect you all know what is coming, but besides that, i have been asked a couple of times what actually happened that night when they two received their powers, and you are about to find out next week :) ( yes, i am already in process of writing them, for those who might ask themselves that :) )

Happy reading.


	45. Forever

The wedding date was approaching rapidly. The couple had indeed hired a wedding planner. Someone who was highly regarded in the city and it was a direct recommendation from Captain Singh. Like all bad things that never come alone it so happens that they had another problem. The venues they chose were all public. By now, most of the media had gotten wind of the fact that they were the owners of STAR Labs and Bette was certain that they would at least be a few gatecrashers at their wedding. If only to take pictures. The problem had not shown its ugly head yet but like it happens to every rich couple, it would have been a bad time to show itself at their wedding.

Barry made a conscience call and bought another house. Something outside the city close to the beach. A vacation home, but not just for himself and his future wife, but for everyone at STAR that was in their circle of close friends. The house was large enough to house most of his good friends and few other people if they wanted to stick around. The configuration was similar to their penthouse except instead of having two floors it had three. The last floor was the master bedroom in the new house and where the master bedroom should have been there were three more rooms, which could be used either for guests or for something else. Caitlin thought about having space as well so with the house came a 25 acre plot of land which extended in every direction and the house itself was surrounded by a manmade forest to act as natural walls around the property. The house itself was surrounded by a large fence that protected the inhabitants from prying eyes also had a direct view of the ocean from the back yard. The yard in itself was a large area that resembled a garden surrounded by a fence itself with the farthest exit leading to a private strip of beach.

The place was amazing, the first time Barry and Caitlin went to see it, they fell in love with it. They knew they had to be in the city most of the time, but coming here to just relax and let go and not worry, which was something they would have liked. When they returned they brought Bette and Cisco with them.

 **"Bette, if you take a look around the property, can you tell me if it can be secured properly? Meaning you know no unknown photographers and stuff or other kinds of uninvited guests"** Barry told his friend

 **"Sure, but Barry I would also like to see the plans for it before I manage to do a walk around. I need to know where the most glaring vulnerabilities seem to be"** She responded

 **"You can't really do a walk around. The plot of land on which this house resides i acres. There's a dirt bike in the garage though if you want to use it. I doubt you want to walk around that much"** Caitlin told her.

 **"I know you took Bette for security concerns. But why did you get me?"** Cisco asked **"Don't get me wrong, I love this house, but I feel a bit useless"** The engineer responded

 **"Oh, you know why we brought you here. We want the same entrance access as for the penthouse. The locks on the door and the outside gate should be fingerprinted and scanned. There is a large Cellar and a few spare rooms where we can hide some servers if needed and we already ordered a high powered satellite dish which will be delivered here sometime this week. We thought calling Kara just to do the heavy lifting would not be polite of us"** Barry smirked toward his friend.

 **"I see. So you want this house as another secondary offsite for STAR?"** the engineer asked.

 **"No, nothing of the sort. Just direct access to the labs mainframe and enough to be able to do our work from here if needed. Of course everything that requires a lab will be done back at STAR, but admin work… we could take a long weekend and come here and just do that"** Caitlin told him.

 **"Wait, we? Didn't you buy this house for yourselves?"** Cisco asked with a surprised face.

 **"Well, we did buy it and that doesn't mean we wouldn't like to be alone here, but the main purpose of this house is for us to meet, take in some rays, have some fun. All of us, not just us"** Barry explained **"I wouldn't have bought this estate if it was just for Caitlin and I. Everyone has his own passions whether it's hunting, trekking, sitting in the sun or agriculture. With this much land, everyone can do what they enjoy, or just sit back in the patio by the pool and do nothing"**

 **"You`re serious. This is for the employees at STAR too?"** he inquired

 **"Well, no. This house is for our personal friends and family. Everyone who knows our secret and wants to spend time here can do that. Ollie, Felicity, you and Bette, Kara, Wynn, Ray, my dad, Joe, Iris, Eddie, Tina and so on"** Caitlin replied to him

 **"Ah I see. So it's a secret clubhouse"** Cisco replied to him.

 **"No, it's not a clubhouse, Cisco. It's a vacation house. People come here to be on vacation"** Caitlin smiled.

While Cisco looked around, Caitlin called the wedding planner and let her know about the new venue plans. Bette took a little time but when she came back she told the two that the property could be secured pretty tightly with some cameras and maybe some traps.

 **"What do you mean by ... traps?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"Simple, if people with electronics try to sneak through the woods, I wonder how nicely it would be if they suddenly got hit with an EMP. Nothing would work. Cameras, cell phones ... it would deter any unannounced paparazzi to enter the premises"** She responded and with that answer calmed Caitlin down. She thought about actual traps not deterrents.

 **"That sounds acceptable. Last thing we need is uninvited guests at the wedding"** Barry cringed at the thought.

 **"I can have the STAR Labs hookup ready in a week at the most. The fact that we don't have wired internet all the way out here kind of prevents us from keeping a secondary core backup here. The satellite has limited bandwidth and if we task it do make a core dump through that, we might lose use for at least a few days which is not really what we want. But for periodic access, that's perfectly fine"** the engineer smiled.

 **"All right. And with that said, this is where the wedding will take place as well"** Barry told the two as they closed the property down and sped back to the city.

Two days before the wedding Barry decided to finally go visit his mother's grave. He had not done so with good reasons. He did not feel like he would be up to her expectations. He knelt by her gravestone and put fresh white roses in the vase.

 **"Hi mom. I'm sorry I haven't come to see you until now. I would normally have wanted to give you the bouquet of flowers that now rests in the vase at my wedding. It seems like fate did not want it to be so. In my perfect world you would be there, next to dad smiling at me, while I marry the love of my life. You would love her, mom. She is in many ways similar to you, but in so many ways different. She inspires me to be a better man, she is wonderful and can make me laugh, but also deep and has conviction when there is something she has to do. She is the most beautiful woman I have ever laid my eyes upon.**

 **I don't know if dad told you this story, but the first time I met her I couldn't take my eyes of her. So much so that I actually almost failed to do my job. The light she brought in my life even with problems of her own still shines in my heart.**

 **It's strange. I would never see myself not married to her in a world where she exists. I know that dad might have told you the same thing about Iris a while back, but that's all in the past. For some reason I have never thought about Iris as I do about Caitlin. With Iris I never got over the kissing and holding hands stage, but Caitlin right now is the only one I could imagine ever building a life and a family with.**

 **I am afraid, Mom. Even after having reopened STAR Labs and being rich beyond my wildest dreams, having friends that would die for me and I would die for them, all heroes in their own right, I am more afraid now than I ever was before. I do not know what the future brings, but every time until now I felt like I have won, there is something that is lost. When something good happens I always think that I might not be strong enough to prevent the bad. I always wonder if I am good enough. Even if she is the fastest woman on this earth and she could probably take care of herself better than I could. She can be impervious to damage and run as fast as I can and yet I still worry about her, fear losing her. I have never had this strength and conviction in me before she came into my life, but at the same time I feel the weakest I have ever been. I'm sorry if that doesn't make sense.**

 **I know I promised myself never to alter time again. But I would do so in a heartbeat if she was in danger, the consequences be damned. She is part of me, a place in my heart that I never knew I had has been filled by her love for me and I never want it to go away.**

 **Look at me. Talking like an adult that is now ready to face consequences for his actions. Now I have a penthouse for an apartment in the middle of the city and a vacation home with a back yard and a garden. Caitlin already said that she wants kids so I will probably be a father one day as well. That is so domestic of me, isn't it? So much for me not having any sort of responsibilities, huh?"** Barry smiled looking at the beautiful sky above with white clouds passing "But I don't care about the dangers. I don't care about the responsibilities. I don't care about having to grow up. It's all worth it, if she is with me. My beautiful Caitlin, the person I am going to marry very soon.

 **I know that dad has been keeping you up to date on my exploits and adventures, but this you had to hear from my own mouth. This was too important to leave out. Look mom, your boy is growing up"** Barry shed a tear remembering his mother's face and her beautiful smile every time he had come home with scrapes and bruises from different bullies or from running. Her smile always calmed him down and the love in her hugs gave him hope **"I will always love you mom. Thank you for everything"** he finished.

 **"I know she would be as proud of you as I am now"** Barry heard a voice from behind him. He turned and saw his father with the same bouquet of white roses he brought his mom. Next to him was Caitlin, which explained why he didn't head a car or any footsteps. She had flashed him in.

 **"Hey dad, how did you know I'd be here?"** he asked.

 **"I wanted to come myself here and put some flowers on her grave. As for how I knew all I had to do is ask the only person that knows what you think"** He pointed at Caitlin who had visibly blushed. Because he didn't hear them coming he had no idea how long they had been standing there listening to him talk. **"I come here every time I am in Central City. Talk to her, remember her as she was. These days less than I used to after you managed to get me out of prison, but still enough"** his father approached and put the flowers on the grave.

 **"Should we leave you to chat?"** Barry asked coming up to Caitlin and taking her hand. He could see she had red eyes, she probably had heard enough of what he said.

 **"Yes. I will find my way back to Joe's on my own. Thank you for bringing me here, Caitlin"** He turned to the woman that was now smiling.

 **"You`re welcome, dad"** she replied and saw Henry's face light up as they flashed back to the city.

 ** _"Did you manage to get a hold of your mom?"_** Barry asked looking over at her as they were running.

 ** _"No, I sent her an invitation. I even tried to call her. She never took my calls, she wasn't even at work the day I raced over there to see if I can talk to her in person. There's no point in trying to get to her anymore. I'm fine with what I have right here, right now"_** she took his hand as they were both running

 ** _"Did you even ask someone to give you away? Or you prefer to come down the aisle yourself without any sort of symbolic meaning"_** Barry inquired.

 ** _"I did indeed. The only person that I could call my "father" even though he isn't even related to me. The one I have grown close enough to consider my family"_** She answered. Prompting an inquiring look from him.

 ** _"So ... who is it?"_**

 ** _"Joe. I asked him to give me away. After all that happened with my father and my mother not really wanting to know anything about me, after we started dating he was there more for me than my father or mother ever was. So that takes care of that"_ **She responded.

 ** _"Why were you crying?"_** Barry asked bluntly when they reached the penthouse.

 ** _"Happiness. We were there for a while. I heard everything you said and I feel the same way. I don't know what the future will bring, but we will face it together or die trying. Me and you and our band of wacky friends that we managed to acquire in our time together. I love you, Barry"_** She kissed him deeply drawing him toward her.

 ** _"I love you too, Cait"_** he replied closing his eyes and deepening the kiss.

It was the day of the wedding. The back yard of the vacation home was brimming with people that were hired by the wedding planner to take care of everything. The preparations have been done a day in advance and now the guests had begun to arrive.

The weather was perfect, a sunny day with no mention of rain in sight. Caitlin told the wedding planner to have parasols for all of their guests. Even though she knew at least Kara would not need one, the thought was something that warranted some extra planning.

The chairs they had gotten for the wedding were kind of uncomfortable. Barry after sitting in one for more than an hour got a back ache so, in order to help with the fact that even if they were iron and very nice to look at due to their designs, they were still hard, Barry had them buy pillows for them which would help with the stiffness and probably prevent some disgruntled people.

As any other outdoor wedding one of the main concerns were mosquitos and bugs. Cisco came up with an idea of a frequency put out by a device that was hidden somewhere close by that would deter any uninvited guests from participating at the wedding. They had of course test runs with his machine and there were quite a few mishaps. The first two frequencies he tried actually drew in the bugs, needing Caitlin to freeze whole swarms on mosquitoes that were chasing the engineer. In the end he got that to work without a hitch. The device was powered by one of STAR West's new and improved power cells and had an effective range of 100 meters, more than enough to keep the wedding bug free.

While the ground was pretty much even, it was still grass, so Caitlin made sure to tell the wedding planner to have heel covers for the female guests that were wearing stilettos. She knew most of her friends would prefer that and even her own bridesmaids have gotten those types of shoes. With the covers at the ready she was sure that no accidents would happen

Neither Barry nor Caitlin knew how much the wedding photos would take. While at first they didn't even think about that, they realized that still it was going to be the first and last day in their life that they were going to do this. So it made perfect sense that there would be as many photos taken as necessary. With that said, the fact that the bridal party would need to probably be in almost all of them meant that those precise people would not have time to eat or snack on anything so they took care of that by ordering to have snacks brought in between photo sessions.

The actual wedding was supposed to be held in the afternoon and while the parasols were a nice addition the wedding planner had an awesome idea. The aisle itself down which the two were about to walk was made out of lights which were tied between with strips of white lace with small round shapes made out of white flowers. The material that was under their feet was another problem. Caitlin didn't really want to wear heel protectors while walking down the aisle and neither did the bridesmaids so … wedding master Cisco was up yet again. He fabricated a long white path out of the material they developed for the firefighter costumes. It was nothing special without power, just an ordinary piece of cloth, except when exposed to current it would harden giving the cloth itself the hardness of asphalt. Caitlin thanked him repeatedly, since she knew that the nanomaterials were not designed for that and the bots required extensive reprogramming. The engineer said on several occasions that he was happy to do that for his two best friends.

The wedding arch was another story. Caitlin and Barry had nothing to contribute to that one. Felicity and Kara thought it nice to have something done on their own. Iris agreed so without the couples knowing they went out and looked for things that would fit. They all fell to agreement when they saw a rose trellis arch that was displayed in one of the shops as a demo. The colors did not fit, so Felicity had them deliver an arch that was made with blue and red roses, so they would be in theme with the wedding and the shields they both wore.

There were a few other surprises the wedding planner and the bridesmaids had in store for the couple, but those would come later.

Caitlin was fidgeting nervously. Felicity, Kara and Iris were in her room helping her get ready. They all saw the nervousness on her face but only Felicity managed to speak.

 **"You ok?"** she asked looking at the fidgeting bride.

 **"Yeah, I think it's true what they say. You always get cold feet before a wedding no matter how much you love the person you`re tying your life to"** Caitlin responded

 **"Everyone has cold feet. Now think about your life with Barry"** Felicity told her. Caitlin allowed her mind to drift off into the distance. The two running around the city helping people, the good the labs were doing for the world, them on a porch looking at the sunset while kids ran around and Cisco got swarmed by mosquitos trying to play with them. The shivers suddenly stopped and she smiled brightly. **"I see that helped"** the blonde replied. After that small thinking exercise her eyes lost their doubt and held the conviction she knew Caitlin had in marrying the man of her dreams.

 **"Yes, thank you. That helped a lot. More than you might imagine"** She replied while the woman was making sure her hair was done. She chose a simple hairdo, but something she knew Barry loved, her long chestnut locks were framing her face, her hair was let down and the veil covered it beautifully. As per request the veil had small light blue snowflakes on it that brought out her complexion more.

On the other side of the house, Barry was in his room doing the same thing. While getting ready he started fidgeting and annoying himself even more. Maybe it was his speedster nature but this waiting and considering the fact that he had to stay away from Caitlin for an entire day was something that he didn't want to experience again. Ever since they had moved in together the couple had not spent more than an hour apart at a time and right now the speedster was experiencing _"withdrawal syndrome"_

 **"Calm down, you idiot, or you`re going to burn a hole in the pavement and in your shoes"** Oliver put a stern hand on his back stopping him in his tracks.

 **"I know, I know"** the speedster nodded **"I just, I haven't been so long away from her since we've been together"**

 **"Oh you got it bad, man"** Cisco quipped. **"If you can't be away from Caitlin for more than a day and you act like this, then I'm afraid that woman to you is as addictive as cocaine"**

 **"So, he's experiencing withdrawal symptoms from being away from his drug?"** Diggle spoke almost laughing.

 **"Well I don't know what else to call it. He's never been so antsy about anything since I have known him"** Oliver grinned **"Are you sure you aren't getting cold feet about the wedding?"**

 **"Hell no. There's nothing I want more now that to marry Caitlin. Just … antsy, I guess and a bit irritated by the fact that we had to spend a day apart just because of annoying wedding protocol"** Barry answered.

 **"Then may this be the last day where you have to spend as much time away from her as you have now"** Cisco smiled brightly at Barry who calmed down hearing his words.

The time for the wedding was nearing. Professor Stein and Henry Allen took it upon themselves to direct the guests to their places. All of the people they invited were here, their small group of friends, some employees that they knew personally from STAR Labs and West and some of the CCPD officers that already had figured out their secret but were now under the NDA that the captain had put upon them. Those were quite a few, the precinct didn't have too many people who couldn't put two and two together. They all sat down and the wedding procession started.

Barry took his place with Ray presiding the ceremony. Singh was surprised at seeing the newly resurrected Ray Palmer, the one that company got bought off by the two being there.

First to come in were Bette and Cisco, hand in hand smiling. Those two being together were not a surprise to the persons that were invited. After them Kara and Diggle, which took their places near the others. Iris and Eddie followed following the same path down the aisle. Last but not least the maid of honor and the best man took their places near the altar. Oliver had a large smirk on his face and Felicity had a bright smile on hers. Singh again was surprised to see that the mayor of Star City was actually Barry's best man. The captain never figured how deep Barry's connections actually went, but this wedding provided him with ample and solid proof. First Ray Palmer and now Oliver Queen. He also recognized Felicity from a report a few months back as being the VP of STAR West. Barry had serious connections not only in this city but in Star City too and now the captain knew it as well. They decided on not having ring bearers since Felicity and Oliver were tasked with keeping the rings safe.

Then there was Caitlin coming down the aisle with Joe. Nobody had even seen the dress she was wearing except the bridesmaids. She was stunning, fact that was obvious considering some of the people at the wedding were simply frozen at the beauty of the bride in front of them. Among them was a certain scarlet speedster who left his mouth to fall while she was walking toward him. Enough to warrant a warning from Oliver who took it upon himself to keep an eye on the speedster to whisper him **"Close your mouth. You'll have your whole life to gawk at your beautiful wife, Barry"**. He did so immediately when he realized what his face looked like. Joe dropped Caitlin off near Barry and went to his place.

 ** _"You look amazing"_** That's all that Barry managed to tell her before Ray began

 **"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here to join this man and this woman in holy matrimony"** Joe, Henry and professor Stein noted mentally that he looked extremely happy fulfilling his role as a magistrate, not even that but it seemed like the man was completely in his element **"If anyone here has a reason that these two should not be wed, I would kindly request that you shut up"** The crowd was stunned and then realizing the gag most of them started laughing **"And if by some god given reason you can't seem to do so"** he motioned toward the sea behind them **"I'm pretty sure we can rent some sharks and make you walk the plank"** the crowd that had barely died down started laughing again.

 **"Now that the obligatory comedic moment is over, let us return to more serious business. I had no idea that Barry and Caitlin wanted a friend that was ordained to marry them so I was pleasantly surprised when I got an offer I couldn't refuse"** some of the crowd chuckled at the godfather reference seeing Ray do the hand gestures as well **"I have not known them for long and yet in that small time I am proud to call them my friends. I look forward to working with them and calling them my friends for many years to come because these two are people you have to love. Even me who initially was a stranger in their quaint group those two made me feel welcomed and made me realize they share a love that I would someday want to have myself. This couple's dedication and love has affected us all in one way or another, but the most important thing is that it has brought us together today. I know for a fact that some people here would not even consider being associated with one another if there weren't these two to bridge the gap. They made us friends, even more for some of us, they created this weird family that we now all share. Now it's finally time that this family celebrates with them the day that will forever change their lives, the day they become husband and wife"** Ray paused for a moment and then continued **"The two have decided to write their own vows so, Caitlin, if you please"** He smiled at the bride and let her speak.

 **"Barry, you know my history better than anyone here. I didn't have a happy family and I was always engrossed in my work. It took a theft a while ago at the labs to give me the chance to meet you. A man that trapped me with his eyes and made me think to myself " _Caitlin, what the hell are you doing"_ Little did I know that was the first and the last time in my life that was going to happen. We did meet once when we were kids, but it was so long ago that I couldn't have been more than a stranger to you, yet you spent 6 months in the lab trying to wake me up from my coma even thought you had no reason to. The days that passed after you managed to wake me up showed me that I had no idea what love was. You had taken me by surprise entering in my life and in my dreams like a flash" **some of the people started to chuckle realizing the hidden joke that was present in that sentence **"At first I was alone, then suddenly, like out of nowhere, I had a partner. Someone to share my happiness, but also my deepest fears with and who meant to me more than life itself. You have always have been beside me, some would say we were joined at the hip " she looked at Joe and Henry who smiled " and now it is that promise that I want to return to you. I promise you to forever be by your side, through the good and the bad, you are the love of my life and I cannot picture my life without you"** She finished speaking her mind, her voice almost cracking at the end, to the audience which about halfway in through her speech realized that she didn't even have some kind of notes with her. Everything that was said was from the heart. Ray then motioned to the other speedster

 **"Barry, whenever you`re ready"**

 **"Caitlin, I have told you this before but I thought everyone should hear. There were two times when lightning struck in my life. The second time, well everyone knows about that, I was in a coma for a long while. What most people don't know that I was indeed so lucky to be struck the first time in the same day. The first time I met you in the parking lot I could not turn my eyes away. The woman in front of me was so beautiful and delicate that in my gawking I almost forgot to do my job. I would have not recognized at that moment although someone already knew, enough to make a comment at a later date,"** he looked at Joe who remembered the discussion that time in the laboratory and grinned subtly **"but my heart was not mine anymore. It was yours. That is what determined me to do what I did. I could not fathom the fact that the woman that provoked that lightning strike in my heart would not manage to wake up. My heart was frosted until then"** more people chuckled at the reference, but Iris of all people was sad. She knew very well why Barry's heart seemed to be cold and he was so distant. It was because she had been blind, and even after she had her own family and husband, there were some things that still were stuck in the back of her mind, like an itch that would take a long time to go away **"and then a miracle happened, you woke up and in all the madness that followed I do not want to change a single thing nor do I regret a single thing. From that night when we went out to Karaoke,"** Caitlin rolled her eyes remembering how wasted she was that night " **to that moment we decided to live together. Memories that I will forever keep in my heart. I make the same promise to you, I will forever be by your side, through the good and the bad, through the unknown that we call the future. Our future, mine and the ones that I will forever regard as the love of my life, you"** Barry stopped and it was Ray's turn to continue

 **"The rings?"** Felicity gave Caitlin Barry's ring and Oliver gave him her ring. The two jewels were anything but simple, they had two golden bands that in between them held a row of snowflakes carefully crafted and held together by a single strand of lightning. The craftsmanship was unique. Barry had made the designs himself and sent them to be created. It took almost 2 weeks for the jeweler to make them with all the intricacies the model revealed. The two put each other's ring on and Ray continued. **"Do you, Bartholomew Henry Allen, take Caitlin Snow to be your lawful wedded wife, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?"**

 **"I do"** Barry replied sternly.

 **"Do you, Caitlin Snow, take Bartholomew Henry Allen, to be your lawful wedded husband, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?"** Ray spoke

 **"I do"** her voice being as stern as his.

 **"Very well. By the power invested in me, I now pronounce you man and wife"** Ray stopped and the two were looking at each other seemingly lost in each other's gaze **"Um, Barry, do I really need to say you may kiss the bride?"** Ray joked and most of the attendees chuckled. Their kiss was longing and passionate, they held tightly onto each other. As the crowd clapped and cheered them on **"Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you, Barry and Caitlin Allen"** Ray made a motion to the two which had still not finished their kiss. The crowd stood up and started to clap even harder, Felicity had to wipe away a tear from her eyes. Henry and Joe had to do the same, but the surprise was Oliver, he wiped his eyes as well as if he had something there. There was no tear, but Felicity saw the happiness that was residing in them. For the first time since he had met the archer there was something different. In his eyes resided a glimmer of hope.

The array of wedding pictures started which made the snacks quite handy some of the bridal party came straight to the wedding and had not managed to eat. Kara's stomach in particular was rowdy. The people started to move toward the tables that were neatly placed around the dance floor. After the pictures were done it took only a little while for the sun to disappear and that's where the wedding began to shine. Under the tables were paper lanterns that lit up the area, not mentioning the candles on each table, but the most beautiful thing they could see was that all around the yard, small candles started to light themselves forming a pattern that could be seen from the air, the pattern they had all seen so many times. A snowflake containing at its core a lightning bolt.

After dinner when everyone managed to finish eating, Oliver decided it was a good time to make a toast. Barry and Caitlin made it clear that there were to be no speeches since Barry sucked at those, but Ollie could not let this pass. He stood up and raised his glass.

 **"Good evening everyone. Tonight we're gathered here to stand with Barry and Caitlin. I consider them family and for that I feel honored to be standing here on such an important day in their lives. We have gone through so much together ever since fate put us in each other's path and I cannot imagine being anywhere but here on this special occasion. As Ray so eloquently put it, you two are the reason all of us are here at this moment. You managed to bring us together to fight adversity, malice and things that go bump in the night. I still remember the first thing you told me back then when you came to talk in Star City over a small identity crisis. "Saving people, hunting things, the family business" That's right ladies and gentlemen this all started from a quote in a TV show. Caitlin can attest that both of them watch too much Netflix, since that is apparently what their social life is, or better said, used to be. Something tells me that from now forward that is going to become as busy as their … other lives. Starting with that moment I began to expect the impossible from you and you have seemed to be able to deliver consistently. Tonight we celebrate your union, let us raise a glass in high hopes of happiness for many years to come. To Barry and Caitlin Allen! And to less Netflix too"** Oliver grinned making the two speedsters laugh.

 **"To family and friends"** the two stood up and held their glasses high **"and to all the people that made this day possible"** the two looked at the wedding planner and her aides.

After the toasting was over, the newlyweds went around greeting everyone and talking finally managing to pass by everyone they saw Kara chatting with someone they did not recognize.

 **"Hey, Kara. I guess some introductions are in order"** Barry smiled at the blonde alien

 **"Oh, yeah, I totally forgot about that. Barry, Caitlin this is my cousin, Clark Kent" she offered**

 **"Glad to finally meet you two. Kara has told me a lot about how you helped her on several occasions. I still can't get my head around this parallel earth thing"** He smiled at the newlywed couple.

 **"Kara, is he from the far, far away part of the family too?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"Yes, he is my cousin and he is from the same planet I am. His name is Kal-El"** Clark gave Kara a strange look **"You did realize they knew who I was already, didn't you, Clark?"**

 **"And, you two have no problem with the two of us being aliens?"** Clark said surprised.

 **"No, why would we, besides we consider Kara family, which means any family of hers is a friend of ours"** Caitlin smiled at the man with Barry nodding behind her. The blunt statement made Clark wide eyed

 **"I guess you are right, Kara. There are earths were people not only do not fear you but find the fact that you`re an alien pretty cool"** Clark joked remembering what she told him of their first encounter. **"I'm glad you helped her with Non, even though you could have been killed. I myself was affected by the signal even with my physiology, so I wasn't able to render assistance"**

 **"We will help whenever we can. Kara can call us whenever she thinks that she is in over her head also Winn can call us in case she is hurt or unable to do so"** Barry told the man

 **"As I will come whenever you need any sort of help. Even if it's lifting a 200 ton satellite dish on the roof of your enormous penthouse"** Kara grinned, but she was called over to talk to Felicity and Clark went with her. Oliver approached with Bette and Cisco.

 **"So, Barry and Caitlin Allen, huh. Where have I heard that before?"** the engineer gave them a large smile.

 **"Oh, shut up! It's not our fault that some rage fest speedster from the future managed to drag us into his problems"** Barry quipped

 **"Besides, it's not like that single article made us think about getting married, We were close at the time too, we just didn't feel it was the right time back then"** Caitlin answered.

 **"So, Barry, how does it actually feel to get the girl?"** Oliver smirked looking at the Flash

 **"I'm not telling you a thing. You got your own wedding coming up and then you can tell me how it feels"** Barry replied to the archer who, in spite the fact that he was not a hugger, pulled them both in one **"Congratulations, you two. I don't think there's someone more deserving to be happy than you"**

 **"Your turn is coming Oliver. Even with all the problems and the challenges you faced in the past, you still had someone next to you that was your own partner through all of that. You are not alone anymore. You have her and us and everyone at this party who knows you for who you are. Just one big happy weird family"** Caitlin replied. The archer smirked but then nodded with a smile on his face.

As per custom nobody started to dance before the bride and groom had their first dance, alone on the dance floor. The two had been practicing in the comfort of their own home dancing and now the fruits of their labors were showing. They glided across the dancefloor in a beautiful manner, with everyone's eyes watching them. They knew that there might be some people that did not know their secret so they decided to take it slow. Soon other couples stepped onto the dance floor with them. Felicity and Oliver being the first with Cisco and Bette soon after. The engineer never failed to amaze. They remembered that time with him in the club he was dancing like he was electrocuted slowly, but now it seemed like he had managed to learn how to properly dance with a lady, Bette actually enjoying dancing with him by the look on her face.

 **"Mind if I step in?"** Oliver smiled toward Barry

 **"Tit for tat, Ollie. You take my wife, I get yours"** Barry smiled leaving place for Oliver to dance with Caitlin while he danced with Felicity

 **"So, no longer dating Barry in Oliver's body huh? Now you`re back to plain old Oliver"** Barry asked his blonde friend which made a serious surprised face at him

 **"How do you even know that? It was just Caitlin and I in that room"** Felicity gave him the stink eye.

 **"I had to go through some surveillance tapes to find something on Eobard at one time and I saw that wonderful moment on tape"** He lied. It was in fact Caitlin who told him.

 **"Yep. Now I'm just going to marry Oliver and I'm as happy as I ever thought I could be"** she answered truthfully knowing that he was just teasing her. It was something that had happened long ago and she knew that he would probably not mention it to anyone since he waited to dance with her to make that joke. Clark took Felicity away from Barry to have Kara dance with him as well.

 **"So this finally happened"** She whispered to him. Barry looked straight at her and could see the fact that she had sadness in her eyes.

 **"Everything all right, Kara? You seem kind of sad for a wedding"** Barry asked the blonde alien rather bluntly.

 **"Yes, everything is fine. Seeing you get married has made me wonder when and if ever I will ever find someone like you two have found in each other"** She said a half truth. She knew very well who she wanted, but Caitlin was right. Having her participate at their wedding gave her peace of mind. She knew now that the person she wanted was no longer available and by the looks the two were throwing each other, would never be available again.

 **"That is not a reason to feel sad. You are wonderful, Bright, sunny, with a smile that could light up a room and a powerhouse that can lift a million ton prison into outer space. You will find someone who I hope you can share your secrets with and who can understand you the same way I have my Caitlin"** Barry told her wiping away the sadness from her face. She believed him, for a reason she could not understand his words rang true in her mind.

 **"I hope you`re right"** she answered giving him one of her bright smiles **"And if not and if I ever become and old lady…"** she didn't manage to finish her sentence before Barry cut her off

 **"You mean like what, in a few hundred years?"** Barry chimed in and made her freeze **"Oh you didn't know? Back when we analyzed your cells to develop the sensors that are in your suit now we took a reference sample of them aging. You have the potential of living at least 400 or so earth years, even more if you get direct concentrated sunlight. Sorry, I thought we did mention that small detail to you"**

 **"That was something I did not know. None of the scientists back had the chance to study my cells. As you have heard Clark say, there are people that fear us and giving them material to study would be unwise. The only two people that I have ever entrusted with that sort of material were you and Caitlin. People I trust and people I love"** Kara replied to the speedster. Again she told a half truth. She did love Caitlin as a friend and as a sister, but at this time what she felt for Barry was nothing near that.

 **"I see. Well we have no idea how long speedsters can actually live. Imagine us three in 400 years, sitting next to the pool as old folk and watching how the world has changed. That would be epic in of itself. However, I do hope that you aren't alone for that long. You deserve better, Kara. With that said, if you ever feel lonely and just want to hand out and shoot some hoops or lounge around the pool, you`re always welcomed here. You know that, right?"** Barry told the alien girl

 **"I do. Thank you for it. To be honest I might even take you up on that offer. There are times these days that I feel like I don't even want to be at home"** Supergirl told him

 **"Why? What happened?"** the question came waiting for more information

 **"Me and James didn't really work out. I kind of blew it with Winn. He confessed to me a while back and at the time I was hung up with James and only regarded him as a friend. That hurt him dearly, I'll never be able to forget the look on his face when I literally brushed him off, so… my love life is nonexistent right now. If I ever want to hang out with someone that understand me for me, that can only be Clark. But after he met Lois, well … that time almost disappeared. So yea, you two understand me for me. That's why I might just take you up on your offer"** Kara explained

 **"You are always welcome here, Kara. To be fair we don't even know what sort of powers our children are going to have. If one of them can fly, by some random chance of a mutation … I know who I'll want as a teacher"** Barry reiterated

 **"Thank you, Barry. You can count on me, although the last time I tried to teach someone something did not turn out that well, I will do my best"** she smiled. On the other side of the dancefloor Caitlin and Clark were having a chat.

 **"I assume you saw the way Kara was flirting with your husband? You know the blushes, the awkward smiles, that thing"** Clark told her.

 **"Of course I have, it's not like she's trying to hide it"** Caitlin smirked at him

 **"And … you aren't at all bothered by it, or insulted or something to that effect?"** Superman asked

 **"No. Not at all. Kara is way too nice to try something with my husband. She is my friend. Besides that is why I called her to the wedding. On top of wanting her here, I thought it might give her a little closure. Maybe it will help her move on from the crush she has on Barry"** Caitlin commented.

 **"I hope she can. I've seen that look"** Clark spoke

 **"Well, I did tell her to get her own. Sadly Barry Allen does not exist in your world, so I promised that we find on in ours we'll send it to her"** she smirked

 **"You`re kidding, where would you find a double?"** Kal smiled

 **"I don't know, but our lives are stranger than yours, Clark. You have aliens, from what I heard from Kara there might be some intergalactic wars in there somewhere and so on, but us? Well, within 7 months of Barry and I waking up with powers an evil speedster from the future tried to kill us"** Caitlin told the man whose face almost fell

 **"Wait, from the future? Is that even possible?"**

 **"Yes, it is. We did it by accident so … you see anything is possible. We even jumped universes. So … at this point I really don't think I'd be surprised if we find another Barry lost in time or in some other universe"** She shrugged

 **"I guess when you put it like that, anything is possible. I'm actually hoping you find one now, seeing how badly smitten Kara is with your Barry"** Clark smiled. The dance continued with Barry and Caitlin switching partners until they decided it was time to take a break. Captain Singh approached them

 **"Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Allen"** he smiled at the couple **"I saw something between you two the first time you came at the precinct. No offense, but there's no way a brilliant scientist that worked at STAR Labs would help a CSI on her own free time without … you know… at least some attraction going on over there"** he smiled

 **"Yes, sir"** They both responded grinning **"We know"**

 **"Call me David. We're not at work here. Barry I had no idea the connections you had ran so far. I mean sure, buying Palmer Tech and then Ray Palmer actually agreeing to be a minister at your wedding? That's something, you would think the man whose company you bought would have some sort of grudge against you, but having the mayor of Star City at your wedding and not just as a mandatory invite, but as your best man, that's a totally different thing"** Singh smiled toward the couple **"How did you even know each other?"**

 **"See the blonde that's dancing with Ray now?"** they pointed and Singh nodded. **"That person is one of our oldest friends. She even came to visit when I was still in a coma. Through her we met Oliver. Then after they ... kind of broke up, she was with Ray for a while. At one point she came with us with a problem Ray was having with his tech, so you could say that through her we met everyone in Star City. Even ADA Lance, who happens to be best friends with that girl in red over at the table who is Oliver's sister"** Caitlin explained to him

 **"I am thoroughly impressed. You guys knew more important people than I have initially thought. I did notice something that was said in your vows. It makes no consequence now but I should ask anyway"** David smirked

 **"All of the people here do not matter to us because they are "important" or have "positions". These are people that we wanted here because we consider them our friends. You included, David. Sure, ask away"** Barry told the captain who was thoroughly surprised.

 **"You said that he spent 6 months in the lab trying to wake you up. How would that be possible unless Barry woke up sooner? Which as far as I know did not happen"** The captain asked

 **"Actually, that is perfectly accurate. I was in a coma for 9 months. Barry however was only in that coma for three. Not knowing what the lightning strike had done to us and considering the fact that we might both die of cellular degeneration in a matter of days. He took it upon himself, with the help of the knowledge he had to make sure that I and he were not going to die horribly. He spent the next 6 months in the lab trying to make sure I was all right and to find a way to wake me up. We had Joe cover that up because it would have raised questions if he woke up and a few days later he died. So instead of trying to answer those questions, Barry didn't actually "wake up". If you understand what I'm saying"** Caitlin told the captain who was listening

 **"I see. Spent 6 months trying to wake you up. The vows make more sense now. Thank you for answering that annoying question"** the captain smiled and he took his leave, going back to the table however Barry and Caitlin saw something in a corner that they weren't prepared for. Henry Allen and Tina McGee were kissing. They thought it was interesting if they … interrupted the situation.

 **"My, my, my. What do we have here?"** Caitlin quipped after they flashed behind them The two were surprised and immediately cut it off.

 **"Dad, Tina. When did you two become so close"** Barry asked but more with a comedic tone rather than anything else.

 **"Um … From your last party?"** Henry cringed and Tina blushed.

 **"Uh, huh. Right. From our last party. Well. You seem to be getting along swimmingly. Don't let us get in your way"** Caitlin smirked at them

 **"Don't worry about it. I would like to say congratulation to you both. However, I'm still surprised that I had to wait this long to say it"** Henry smiled at the two **"Remember how long ago I asked if it's too soon to call me dad?"**

 **"Wait, you saw this happening all the way back then?"** Barry looked at his father with a bit of surprise

 **"You could say that. A father always knows, the way you were looking at Caitlin talked to me in droves. While I wasn't sure that it would be an actual safe bet, I did hope that you two would reach this point. I know enough about both of you to say that, after the bad things that happened in your life, you two definitely deserve a break"** The man spoke

 **"I see you`ve taken that to heart as well"** Caitlin started to chuckle while motioning toward Tina

 **"You could say that, or you couldn't. Don't ask me how or why this happened, it just did"** Henry replied

 **"I didn't really put much stock in relationships, as you two already know. For me it was always my work and trying to change the world. In meeting Henry, my world changed little by little"** Tina replied

 **"Then I'm glad that happened to you two"** the speedster gave them a large smile

 **"Now you can begin to rock each other's world too, since I doubt that kiss was doing anything else"** Caitlin smirked at the couple yet again leaving them speechless. The two newlyweds went to sit in a large swing that was planted on the property near the wedding venue. They saw Jesse and Wally and they motioned for them to come over.

 **"Guys, where's Harry?"** Barry asked bluntly

 **"He couldn't make it. He was trying some new things and there was a back blast from an experiment gone wrong. He's fine but one hand and a leg are in casts so … as you might imagine he couldn't make it to the wedding being Mr. Plaster"** Jesse told the two speedsters

 **"I see, tell him we missed him here. Even with him being the way he was at the start he is still a friend and most of us here are friends if not more"** Barry commented.

 **"More than that, I see you two have grown close of the past few weeks huh?"** Caitlin cheerfully commented at the fact they were holding hands and didn't really seem to care who saw them.

 **"Yea, helping in Central City on our earth together actually managed that. But you two should know that better than anyone"** Wally commented with a grin.

 **"Congratulations are in order then"** the married couple offered seeing the two grin as they wondered away from the venue. Beginning to walk back slowly they saw Professor Stein on a bench discussing something with Clarissa.

 **"Hello, I'm glad you two could make it"** Barry shook the professor's hand.

 **"We wouldn't miss it for the world. I still remember that first discussion we had in the lab. I see you have decided to not drive and give your pretty girl the attention she deserves"** The professor snickered.

 **"All the attention in the world professor"** The speedster smiled widely at the old man.

 **"Have you and Jax cleared everything with the Firestorm Matrix?"** Caitlin asked a bit worried.

 **"Yes we did. We can now transmute basic objects to whatever we desire. Although for some reason we still haven't been able to make Iron into gold"** the old professor winked at them.

 **"Ah the old alchemic problem that haunted people from the dark ages. Well if you do, let us know. We could always use more gold for the power cells that Star West makes"** Caitlin laughed.

 **"Yes, we did hear about that wonderful advancement you guys managed to create. Person with spine fracture walking again, that's something you don't see every day"** Martin smiled at the two

 **"And can you believe it that the man that actually invented the first version of that chip almost got fired because the board before us had only greedy people on it?"** Caitlin added seemingly a bit annoyed.

 **"That is the world of corporate moneymaking. But you changed that, you managed to even get Mercury Labs in to help you. Congratulations and may you have luck and inspiration in all you want to do from now on"** Stein smiled

 **"How about you, professor. Are you coming back anytime soon?"** Barry asked.

 **"At the moment, no. I'm doing something else, Firestorm related. I wish I can tell you more, but I feel like this isn't the right time to do that"** Stein replied

 **"Well, you'll always have your lab when you come back, but I suspect you already knew that, didn't you"** Caitlin smirked.

 **"Yes and I thank you for holding it for me"** He thanked the two.

Barry and Caitlin left the two Steins on the bench and went back to dance some more. Another slow song, something that would allow them to stay more in each other's arms than actually dancing.

 ** _"I didn't really mention in detail to you yet how stunningly beautiful you are"_** Barry told her silently in her mind.

 ** _"You didn't really have to. I did catch your reaction when I was walking down the aisle. I do believe that Oliver told you to close your mouth?"_** She smirked.

 ** _"He did. I was really antsy and annoyed that we had to spend one day apart so I wouldn't see the wedding dress, but it was totally worth it. The open mouth was just the first reaction I had to seeing the most beautiful woman I have ever met walk into the room with an astonishing attire on her. Oliver might have mentioned that I was actually starting to drool when we talked later"_** Barry held her hand **" _I don't think I can find a word that would give justice to how you looked coming down that aisle, Cait"_** He looked at her and see how badly she was blushing and fidgeting.

 ** _"Thank you. You look handsome yourself, Mr. Allen. I knew you cleaned up well, but this is something completely different from anything I have seen. Of course, it might be the feelings speaking"_** She smiled toward him

 ** _"You brought down the house, Mrs. Allen and I cleaned it up rather well"_** he smirked almost bursting into laughter.

 ** _"Caitlin Allen, huh. That has a really nice ring to it. I like it, but then this isn't the first time I've said these exact same words"_** she commented remembering that night after they were in the Gideon room and saw the paper from the future.

 ** _"As do I, my darling, as do I"_** the speedster looked longingly at the beautiful woman that was standing next to him, his wife.

 **"You two still freak me out when you do that"** Felicity approached them with Kara

 **"What they can do is something that is highly sought after on my home planet. Or was. Finding someone with which to share that kind of bond was like the wish of every Kryptonian and here you two are not even of that planet and you get something like that because of lightning"** Kara smiled at the two

 **"I would like to have that with Oliver, but it still freaks me out. How are you two, everything all right?"** Felicity asked.

 **"We're fine. Just tired, which is nothing surprising. Dancing eating, going around talking to everyone. To be honest I could go for a run"** Barry told them

 **"I know, that's what I've been thinking myself. A good run to get the adrenaline flowing"** Caitlin smirked.

 **"I can do one better. Anyone here knows who you two are, right?"** Kara asked.

 **"We can't be sure, but ... what did you have in mind Kara? We can do it a bit later when the people that might not know go home"** Barry asked.

 **"Simple, a race. You, Caitlin, Jesse, Wally, me and Clark"** Kara smiled.

 **"I'm in. I would have to change out of the dress though"** Caitlin looked at Felicity who smirked.

 **"You can change back into it after. It's not like you can't do that in 5 seconds flat"**

 **"I think she would be annoyed if she got sweaty before the wedding night"** Kara smirked to which Caitlin replied

 **"Of course, because we can't take a shower before we flash back into these clothes. Come on, super speed"** she grinned **"All right. Race it is. I'll show you which people to tell to remain after. Both of you already know who was at the house warming party. Those and add captain Singh. Tell them to stay if they want to see something cool."**

 **"All right"** The two went away while the newlyweds finally manage to sit down and talk to Ray and Thea.

 **"Thanks for doing this for us, Ray. We appreciate it"** Barry smiled.

 **"You know I couldn't refuse and yes, for whoever caught that, it was a godfather reference"** He smiled

 **"I knew it"** Thea started to laugh **"And the walk the plank joke, pirates of the Caribbean?"**

 **"Oh that actually came to me as an image of someone saying no to the wedding and you super speeding to build a gallows and get some sharks"** Ray started to laugh joined by the two

 **"That probably wouldn't have happened"** Caitlin replied

 **"Yes it would. I'm pretty sure Kara, Wally and Jesse would have taken care of that"** Thea smiled **"Thank you for inviting us. This was amazing, makes me want to think about it myself one day"**

 **"You`re part of the family now, Speedy"** Frost grinned at the small woman that was in front of her **"Of course we would invite you and Laurel and Ray was the minister so ... it's not like we could forget him"**

 **"You could actually forget me if I was not the minister?"** Ray frowned. **"I'm crushed"** And everyone started to laugh.

It was almost morning when the party started to break up. Most people enjoyed being in the group and had fun. Some of them even expressly stated it's the most fun they had at a wedding. The couple was pleased by this. At the end only the ones that actually knew their secret remained. Oliver and Felicity, Thea and Ray, Cisco and Bette, Henry and Tina, Joe with Iris and Eddie, Professor Stein and Clarissa, Laurel, Curtis with his husband and last but not least captain Singh. The two flashed into their suits, Kara and Clark changed into theirs and Jesse and Wally did the same. Singh was speechless for a minute. Six of the world's most powerful heroes were sitting in front of him ready for the most menial of things. A race.

 **"Kara, how's your power level?"** Barry asked before anything

 **"Should be fine. I'm at 90%. Why do you ask?"**

 **"The race will be a straight shot to Star City and back. I would even try to propose that if you were less than 50%"** Barry explained.

 **"Kara? You didn't mention that you know now how much strength you have? I'm guessing it's something these guys built?"** Kal replied with a smile

 **"Something to talk about for another time, Kal. But yes, your assumption is right, these two did come up with it and Cisco built it" the** alien blonde responded

 **"Oh right. Cisco, would Kara's belt buckle work on him?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"I can't find any reason as to why it wouldn't. Kara mind giving me that for a minute?"** Cisco told the blonde and Kal looked weird seeing her giving her the buckle and holding on to her skirt. Cisco put the buckle on Kal's chest. **"What does your display say?"**

 **"137%"** she replied.

 **"Accounting for weight discrepancy and body type. I guess he's at around 95% as well. The sensors were calibrated for your body. You being smaller it showed the wrong value. We're all good"** Cisco gave back the buckle to Supergirl.

 **"That should be just fine then. We're well over 90% which means we can handle a trek to Star City and back"** Kara smiled.

The heroes aligned at the starting point. Barry put on his mask and Caitlin activated the suppressors for her ice powers. She would need the extra speed. Barry gave his wife a kiss, for good luck and something similar to what had happened that day with the singularity happened again. A tornado of lightning appeared between them as they kissed encompassing them both, prompting the other guests to shield their eyes. This time the twister of lightning receded faster but the people around them could see the change. As the two smiled at each other, they had lightning dancing in their eyes. Cisco gave the start and everyone was off. The backdraft that the two speedsters produced was massive, enough to knock Ray off his feet and make Thea fall in his lap. Their speed had reached another level as they ran they could feel it. The trip to Star City took 3 minutes instead of 15 this time, as they returned they decided to run over the finish line hand in hand and when they did something happened. The scenery suddenly changed, they were no longer in the city, they were in a void, in a tunnel made of lightning, part orange, part silver blue. Two familiar face approached them. Barry knew once face well, as did Caitlin from the many pictures the speedster had shown her, but the other was a complete surprise.

 **"Hello, mom"** Barry managed to utter.

 **"Hello, dad"** Caitlin spoke with a gutted voice

 **"Hello, Barry. We are not your mother, we picked this form because it would be the most familiar to you"** The entity that had the face of Nora Allen spoke **"You both have passed a threshold. Something that not many speedsters in their lives ever do. You went so fast that you broke a hole into this dimension. Our dimension"**

 **"Who are you?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"You might call us, The Speed Force. We are its guardians, the ones that make the rules, its protectors and its Council. There are many of us, but we appeared to you in this form. We did not want to contact you prematurely, but it seems that you managed to come here. We wanted to thank you for getting rid of Zoom. That monster did not have a place being part of this"** The entity that had her father's look continued

 **"Something had to be done. Zoom was killing a lot of people just because of his plans. He was nothing more than a monster of that you are absolutely correct"** Barry replied

 **"For that, we wanted to reward you and give you his speed to you both. The power that made Zoom tick and made him faster than either of you, is now in both of you. The balance has been restored and with it the Speed Force has evened out. There will always be bad speedsters and good ones. That is how the balance is kept, Zoom was disrupting that balance. Now run, think about your loved ones and you will return at the same moment you left. One word of advice though. The man you call the Reverse Flash did not disappear from the Timeline. You might have killed him, but he is still out there in one of his many incarnations. You should be prepared, because there will be a day when you will meet him again"** The Nora Allen entity told the two speedsters while moving away

 **"Can you tell us when?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"No. We cannot interfere with the timeline purposefully. It is one of our highest laws. These laws which as you have to abide to we have to as well. But don't worry. Together you are more than a match for him and even if you are not, you have friends that can help you"** the other one responded. The two could swear that the tone that came from it was a bit saddened, but that disappeared in a second's notice

 **"You said that you cannot interfere. Back when Vandal Savage was attacking our friends, Central City was wiped out and we jumped back in time to save it. Does that not classify as interference?"** Caitlin asked them both

 **"It does, but we aren't monsters, as long as the jump is only a few days and it is used to save a large amount of people from certain death, you will not hear from us. Remember this however, some moments are pivotal in some timelines, if you try to undo that moment, we will stop you"** The one looking like Nora Allen responded quite bluntly

 **"I understand. So basically we can try to jump back a few days to prevent something from happening, if we manage to make it back, then it means we have your permission to try to change whatever calamity occurred. If we cannot, it means that it's a defining moment that needs to happen either way and we cannot change it."** Barry replied

 **"Yes, you could regard it like that. But remember, do not overuse that power. It's one thing to prevent a calamity and another all together to return 3 days into the past because your cat died. ONLY in extreme circumstances is this pass to be used. We have never given any speedster before you express permission to do something like this. Do not disappoint us"** The reply came. Nora Allen turned back and for a moment she was not the entity that took her form, she was more like herself.

 **"I'm proud of you, Barry. Really proud of what you have become. Take good care of her, she will be there whenever you need her. As for you"** the image looked straight at Caitlin **" Take care of my boy, Caitlin. Together you can do wonderful things"** she told her son whose eyes began watering.

 **"Cait, I know I haven't been in your life as much as I wanted, but this? I expected great things from you and I seem to have been right all along. Take care of him as he will take care of you. I am proud of what you have become."** the man turned toward Barry **"Barry, take good care of my daughter"** He grinned. The same thing happened with the entity which portrayed Caitlin's father. His wife next to him had the same reaction.

 **"Run, think of your friends and you will be there"** They both disappeared in front of their eyes as the two turned around and started running. Further away two strange clouds that seemed to keep an eye on the whole conversation started discussing something.

 **"We were so young back then, weren't we?"** one of them asked with a low volume voice

 **"Hey, I'm not old … yet, but the answer to your question is yes, we were quite young and at the start of our adventure together"** the other one answered.

 **"DO you think us pulling the two people out of their timelines for a few seconds will have some lasting effects?"** the question arose

 **"No, we managed to do that right before both of them died. Since there will be no need to wipe their memories of that they saw, you can say it was a blessing for them as well. Seeing their kids as they grew up and what happened"** the answer came immediately

 **"Yes, I know I would want to see what happens to my kids if that were to occur. Come on, we have our own issues to worry about. We still have a speedster criminal to catch and even if time doesn't pass in this dimension, that doesn't give us an excuse to slack off"** One of the entities spoke

 **"I still love when you get all in control on me, sweetie. Even after all these years. However, you are quite right, we need to get our asses in gear"** The discussion stopped and the two entities simply started moving in the opposite direction with trails of lightning of their won lighting up the tunnel as they disappeared.

Barry and Caitlin as they were running and thinking about their friends, in a moment's notice they were back at the starting line. Something had changed. Caitlin could now clearly feel Barry's sadness, but also his happiness at seeing his mother again. He, on the other hand, could feel her surprise and shock at seeing someone who was dead.

 ** _"You're shocked at seeing her as well as your father, aren't you?"_** Barry asked her

 ** _"Yes, I had no idea that the speed force could take his form as well. But to answer your question, I am shocked at seeing both of them, just like you are happy and sad"_** Caitlin replied.

 ** _"Now I can say that I met your father as well, which is strange considering he was dead long before"_** Barry chuckled

 **" _It seems that now we can do much more than hear each other's thoughts. We can feel what the other is feeling quite clearly now as well"_** she continued

 ** _"I guess then we are finally in sync. It was strange, why did it take a marriage to get us here?"_** He asked.

 ** _"Because before there was always the chance that something would happen between us and we would split apart. Maybe not consciously, but in the back of our head that possibility was always there. And it held us back. That would be my guess, but it is nothing more that"_** Caitlin answered. Barry realized it as well

 ** _"But now you are mine and I am yours. Those thoughts have no place in our minds anymore. Letting them go is what let us sync and unlocked the final stage of the bond we share. That makes sense I guess"_** Barry smiled then chuckled **" _Look at me, talking like this relationship has a level and skills. We aren't in a role playing game for crying out loud"_** The two started to laugh out of nowhere then saw the rest of the people that were looking at them shocked.

 **"You two are at least five times faster than you ever were. I kept track of you on my tablet"** Cisco managed to utter. **"And it seemed that you disappeared as well for a split second. I'm counting that as a glitch"**

 **"No, we were gone. We were talking to the Speed Force. The entity that gives us our speed. It came to speak to us in the form of my father and Barry's mother"** Caitlin told them. They were all surprised that it happened, some of them didn't even know what that Speed Force was.

 **"Still, apparently you got a significant power up, yet again. I swear it feels like I'm living in Dragon ball Z with you two sometimes"** Cisco quipped making the ones that knew what the joke was about laugh.

Who won the race wasn't even a discussion. Barry and Caitlin took 6 minutes to be back. They took showers after running to Keystone City to get 30 pizzas and changed back into their wedding attire. It took another 25 minutes for Wally and Jesse to return and another 15 after that for Kara and Kal.

 **"Wow, you two are fast"** Wally managed to comment.

 **"We didn't even activate our tachyon enhancers. We just ran without straining ourselves. We barely even broke a sweat. Went to Keystone City and brought pizzas all around. We know how speedsters eat and we know how Kara does too, with that in mind I assume Kal eats the same"** Barry commented motioning over to the mountain of pizzas on the table.

 **"I'm hungry"** Kara replied **"That took a lot out of me and I was running at my top speed. We barely even caught the tail end of the dust storm you two put up"**

 **"They definitely are faster than us, cousin"** Kal stopped panting. The two had consumed a lot of energy during the race.

 **"Kara, turn on your solar collectors will you?"** Barry told the blonde alien running to the house and getting 2 high powered sun lamps that were connected to power cells. **"I thought these might come in handy to have around for you two"** Kara did what she was told. Superman looked how her suit changed. After about 30 minutes she was back at full strength, speeding back into her wedding attire and turning her light toward Kal, who wasn't even halfway recharged.

The rest were eating, Barry and Caitlin ate half the wedding cake in one go, with a few pizzas on the side, Kara ate another quarter while the rest was split amongst the remaining people. Jesse and Wally were fine with just eating pizza. People were glad they stayed but it was now late into the morning so most of them took a cab home. Cisco had made Wally and Jesse their own breach generators which they used to return home with. The only people that remained till the end were Kara, Clark went ahead and crossed since he had to go back all the way to Metropolis, Bette and Cisco.

 **"We're heading back too. Happy honeymoon you two"** Cisco smiled at the newlyweds

 **"Don't wreck our lab you hear?"** Barry grinned at them. As they walked out the door Kara began to speak

 **"I guess it would be time for me to return as well. I wanted to stay with you until everyone went home. Call it … a precaution"** She smiled brightly at the two.

 **"Thank you. For being here and for all the help"** Barry told the blonde and pulled her in for a hug.

 **"It means a lot to us and as we have stated on several occasions. If you ever feel alone, you know where to come"** Caitlin reassured the alien that whatever the problem she would always be welcomed in their home.

 **"Congratulations and goodbye I guess. We shall see each other again"** She told them as she activated her breach generator and a blue swirling vortex appeared in front of her.

 **"Thank you. You can bet your cape we will see each other again. Take care Kara and continue being … Super"** Barry smiled as the blonde stepped through the breach which closed behind her.

The couple was left alone watching over the horizon which had begun to light up giving way to the sun to rise in the distance. The two were watching it happen. Their first sunrise as husband and wife, one of the many that was to come. Barry kissed his beautiful wife drawing her closer to him. The light of the sunset becoming ever clearer.

 ** _"I love you, Barry Allen"_** her mind spoke to him

 ** _"I love you, Caitlin Allen"_** he replied without thinking, drawing her closer into a tight embrace.

* * *

AN : This was one of the worst chapter i had to write in this entire story. I realized that i have no clue about how a wedding is supposed to go, so i had to look in other places for inspiration. Props to my friend Angel who actually managed to walk me through everything that a wedding is supposed to entail.


	46. Redemption

Before Note : Im going to have to rate this chapter as M, there are some images that people might find traumatic, or other things that happened. Be forewarned, i used them with a purpose.

* * *

The two speedsters enjoyed their honeymoon through Europe. There were places that they had always wanted to visit and now during the course of almost a whole month they did. Italy, then Belgium, France where they stayed a few days. Back to Italy and then over the water to Greece. But visiting wasn't all they did, where they could they helped people along the way. Until then Flash and Frost were two names that were only known in and around Central City, Star City a few other places, but ever since they started their honeymoon, it would have appeared to the naked eye that they went global.

They would spend some days in bed, enjoying each other, others were spend visiting places they had both wanted to see while others were just used to save people and help the ones that needed it. Their heroism got the better of them, by the end of the third week almost half the time was spent saving other people rather than enjoying their well-deserved vacation. Rather than continuing the trip, Barry thought that the last part of their honeymoon should be spent in a place where they have never been to, but they always visited, in their minds. Henry's cabin in the woods, the place they knew so well from Barry's mind, but where she had never been. He reminded her that when they talked about their choice of places for a honeymoon, she mentioned that she wanted to see the actual place in his dreams. In light of that development, they both decided that their last week off would be there. Just relaxing. Henry had not been there in a while, just visiting to keep the place up and running as he thought to himself the newlywed couple would want to go there someday, seeing how they told him about the mind scape they both had.

The newlyweds arrived at the little log cabin on the lake, unpacking and making themselves comfortable when Barry thought he saw someone outside, moving very fast. In a flash he was outside searching the area as he found something that was not supposed to be there. Another small log cabin, about the same his dad had, hidden in a patch of woods close to a cliff face. The large trees were covering the house making it effectively invisible from the air and heavy bush cover would protect the house from either sides except from the front. Caitlin was soon beside him.

 **"What is this?"** she asked

 **"I don't know. This was not here when I last came here. Or maybe it was but I didn't see it, or just overlooked it. Maybe we should go inside. Just be careful"** Barry answered. Caitlin immediately changed, her powers changing her appearance willingly this time as she covered herself in a sheet of thin ice, giving her protection for any projectiles that might come from inside.

 **"I'll go first"** she said and saw Barry nod knowing that she is almost bulletproof in that form. As they opened the door they could see a figure sitting in a recliner with a hood on his face. It looked similar to Oliver's arrow costume except it was black. The room was modestly furnished. The recliner the person was standing in and two chairs with a table in the middle, a small sofa and a large stove.

 **"Hello?"** the couple asked

 **"Hello, Flash, Frost. I have been expecting you. You can drop your shields, Frost. I do not pose a threat to either of you. The fact that I am here comes from trying to protect both of you. Even if it meant sacrificing my life for it"** the figure turned toward them and removed his hood. Looking back at them, a grinning figure which they recognized very well. It was Barry Allen. A little older, there was some scruff on his face and his dark green eyes were seemingly empty and looked like he had seen a lot of pain.

 **"Wait ... what? Seriously?"** The Flash looked at his wife " **Let me guess, wibbly-wobbly, timey – wimey … stuff?"** he sighed

 **"Pretty much. Nice one with the reference over there, it's good to see that all these years and I'm still a nerd who watches sci-fi"** the older version of him chuckled

 **"So ... you`re the Flash from the future?"** Caitlin asked sitting down. They have dealt with time travel before, but this was ... surprising to say the least. **"You look older so I presume that you are from the future"** Caitlin explained

 **"No, I have not been the Flash … for quite some time. My name now is Menace and yes, I am from the future. Or I guess I was"** the figure talked

 **"Why? What happened to you?"** Barry asked him even though it was him, something told Barry that this person should not be trusted unless proved otherwise. His cold eyes and his dreary gaze reminded him of Oliver. Barry took Caitlin's hand which had melted off the ice from her skin and they sat down on the small sofa that was in the room. **"Can you tell us? Or if you do, you know the whole time travel thing ripples through the universe and the Earth implodes on itself"**

 **"I guess I can tell you. That timeline has already been erased from existence ever since you both have received your respective powers. I am all that is left, with all the pain that I carry"** the dark figure responded, Caitlin seeing the void in his green eyes **"But first, I need to apologize to both of you. For meddling in your lives more than I should"**

 **"What do you mean?"** Caitlin asked interested by what the man had to say.

 **"I am … you, Barry, as you might have already guessed. In my timeline, I was the only one struck by lightning, I was in a coma for 9 months and then I became the Flash. Caitlin, you were just a normal woman, well ... until later that is"** Menace responded trying to summarize something in a few words

 **"You, you were the streak that I saw that night in the lab. The one that pushed Caitlin into me when the lightning hit"** Barry suddenly realized.

 **"Yes, I'm sorry for that. But … I thought Caitlin deserved a better fate than the one she had when I knew her. And watching you two, you are now what I hoped I would have someday, a family and someone who loved me more than life. Something that was denied to me due to my meddling in time. But I was not here since that night. I came here earlier because I had to … make some things happen. About 6 months earlier"**

 **"What things?"** Caitlin asked, her voice was low, she really wanted to hear what this man had to say.

 **"You were in STAR Labs, the night the particle accelerator exploded in my timeline. Since you were nowhere near the source of lightning that gave me my powers, I had to bring you there somehow. After a while I had a bright idea so … I staged the break in at STAR. I used Mardon and left the traces of the Reverse Flash's blood at the scene. I suspect you saw the static in the monitors did you not?"** he continued.

 **"We always suspected they were from the lightning of a speedster, but we could never prove anything. The blood sample was corrupted beyond repair. We tried all sort of reconstructive techniques on that DNA, but nothing came from it. It also did not have a match anywhere in any database. All that we got from it was ... that it was from the future"** Barry responded and Caitlin nodded

 **"I know. I thought that was the only thing you would need from it. It would have been strange if you managed to tie it to Harrison Wells before you knew he was the Reverse Flash, so I degraded the sample enough to be good for just a carbon dating. Being constantly near a bio engineer and having a photographic memory made that pretty easy. But getting that, meant you, Barry, had to call Caitlin to verify your findings. Because if the dating was wrong, then the evidence would be inconclusive, and that … is how I managed to get Caitlin at the lab that night"** Menace told the couple

 **"Which means … you created me? You created Frost?"** Caitlin asked with complete and utter surprise in her voice

 **"Yes, you could say that. It was a gamble, you might have chosen to remain at STAR for the accelerator opening. I had no idea of the outcome, but I knew younger me would be by your side, so ... I hoped it would have ended up differently. Better. Not like my timeline… where everything went to hell in a handbasket"** the hooded figure continued.

 **"What gave you the right to play god like that, Menace?"** Caitlin raised her voice **"Who thought that you could do such a thing. You are Barry. He would not do that"**

 **"The powers you got were in you anyway. A latent gene activated by the particle accelerator, but you would have gotten them later and Barry might have not been around when you did"** he continued **"Do not mistake me for your husband, because I am not. The amount of pain I saw and lived thought is nothing you two can ever comprehend. I am happy that you will never have to. At least that part of what I did I am thankful about, you two having something that I never managed to get. No matter how fast I got or how hard I tried"** the hooded figure told the angered Caitlin

 **"Tell us what happened"** Barry stood still waiting for an explanation

 **"It's a very long story"** the figure returned. **"Besides, what does it matter? That future is gone now, why should we even talk about it?"**

 **"We have time"** Caitlin calmed herself taking her husband's hand.

 **"As for why we want to talk about it? If you did this willingly by changing the timeline, we would like to know why, because you are still me and I would like to see the reasoning behind it"** Barry replied.

 **"Very well then. It all started after I defeated Zoom. I say defeated because he died, but in a way he defeated me himself. He managed to kill Henry, right in front of me. That evening, even though Caitlin begged me not to I ran back in time, wanting to save my dad and my mother. I ran back to that night and saved her. I lived for a few months in the new timeline only to realize that I was missing the most important thing in my life and that every time I used my speed more of my memories would slip away from me. The woman I loved did not know me, she became an ophthalmologist and I was starting to lose her from my mind. Cisco was a billionaire, Joe and Iris were not really talking to each other and Wally, well ... he was the Flash. That night, saying goodbye to my beautiful life where my mother and father were still alive, I went back in time and had to beg my other self to stop and let my mother be murdered. I stood there as she bled out telling her that everything will be all right. That her baby boy would become a superhero one day until she died in my arms"**

 **"You were the second blur that took me out of the house, weren't you?"** Barry asked and the dark figure nodded.

 **"Yes, you had to stay alive. I could not let Eobard kill you. But when I came back … there were changes. The timeline pretty much reset, except now we still had Zoom somehow to deal with and a whole lot of people that had received powers in the alternate timeline I created started getting them back. But worst of all, the one I loved had received powers. Powers that could not be controlled, only suppressed. Powers that if left unchecked it would have been the end of her"**

 **"What kind of powers?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"Ice Powers. The woman I loved was you, my dear Cait. I'm still surprised you haven't figured that out by now"** The figure said with a tear in his eyes. Caitlin was shocked she had seen Barry's visions, of the looming figure called Killer Frost, but they had managed to conquer her together the first time she appeared during the Bivalo incident" **We had managed to get a hold on your powers, until Zoom found out. He kidnapped you and forced you to use them. That's how Killer Frost was born. Zoom's second in command the person I would be fighting to get back for the better part of a year. The problem was another thing. She was carrying my child, at the time of her abduction, but the forced transformation killed the boy. The cells were not compatible after she had fully transformed and her body rejected the fetus like it was a disease. If she would have carried it to term I might have had a chance to bring her back, but when the child died, her soul shattered. She let herself be Killer Frost to forget about the pain of losing it and maiming the father of that child up to a near point of killing him"**

 **"Maiming?"** Barry asked

 **"Yes, in one of our battles, a sharp ice core hit me in the back. It penetrated my spine and left me unable to walk for two months while my super speed took care of the healing. It was a very slow process. Without my personal doctor, the recovery was hard and arduous. All the while, Zoom was taunting me by kidnapping and killing the people I loved. First, it was Cisco. He disappeared one night from the lab only to reappear on a cross in the middle of Central City four days later. He had been tortured beyond recognition and the icicles that were holding him to that wooden thing were a dead giveaway as to who had done it"** Menace told them

 **"Killer Frost"** Caitlin said with her voice almost cracking

 **"Yes. The woman I loved, tortured her own best friend and my own, to get back at me. The images were … horrific. But then … Joe followed. With a display of gruesomeness even worse than Cisco was. This time it was zoom that took care of the torture. Joe was only a husk of a man when his body was put out on display for everyone to see. Iris at least was quick. She was executed by Zoom with one swift move of a vibrating hand through her heart. The haunting look in her eyes is something I have nightmares about to this day. But it didn't stop there. Next was Felicity, she had the balls to come to Central City to try to help me speed my recovery. Oliver was occupied with Laurel and he took his eyes off her for one day. That day was her undoing. When she came to Central City, Killer Frost had her in her sight within hours of her arrival. She never even made it to STAR Labs. After a week her mangled body was deposited in the Cortex where I was recovering as a warning, to never come near Zoom again. He was toying with me, torturing me and the worst part of it, their deaths were not the biggest torture. The fact that the woman I loved was by his side grinning all that time was the thing that finally broke me. I healed slowly, being most of the time shut into the secure Gideon Room at the labs. Not even Zoom could phase through that material and the EM field that was radiating from it … and when I could run, I ran to Palmer Tech. I begged Ray to help me build another tachyon prototype. To give me more speed, more power, I needed to get faster, in order to end it all, even if it meant losing myself, I wanted Zoom dead. Hunter Zolomon had to die and had to die slowly and painfully"**

The two newlyweds were holding each other, almost like they could feel the pain and the anger spewing out of his words. Barry had been holding on to his Caitlin tight. Almost like an answer to a question that was never asked. She knew he would never let her go. He didn't want to experience the pain this future version of him had experienced. Caitlin on the other hand wanted to cry. She could not believe what this Barry had gone through, all at the hands of the woman he loved, her doppelganger. Barry felt her sadness and kissed her on the cheek gently not letting go of her hand.

 **"I had no clue that Ray could come up with something as complicated as a tachyon prototype. I thought he had a different area of expertise, however it does make sense, I suspect he would read anything just to be able to help. Sometimes we enjoy making fun of him and teasing him, but he is indeed a genius and very good friend"** Caitlin replied and Barry nodded silently

 **"Ray helped. God bless his soul. In my time we used to make fun of him quite often, we used to tease him, we painted his suit pink once. But when push came to shove, he was there. He didn't even ask how or why, when I told him who Zoom had killed he worked like a madman. Much like he had with his previous fiancée he didn't really have time to get over Felicity when she died, even though she was still fawning over Oliver. Her death gave him purpose and the anger to channel into finishing his work, which was not for good this time around, as everything up to that point was invented to create a weapon, not something that would help humanity as he had originally intended. However, he saw that defeating Zoom was helping all the people that were at the mercy of that madman, so he trampled his own principles to help me. Something I cherish to this day. I studied all the books I could find on speed and speed equations, everything that had to do with Particle Physics and the laws of motion. We designed a series of nanobots that when injected into Zoom they would take away is powers completely. He would not be able to phase them out of his system and as long as they were active, he would be powerless. But in order to reach him … I had to go through her"**

The couple was looking at one another and then back at him. Barry at least in the back of his mind had always asked himself what would have happened if Caitlin had succumbed to Killer Frost but in his wildest dreams the outcome would not have been this dire. He could not believe what he was hearing, nonetheless he let his other self-continue his story.

 **"Was that the only way you could do it? Was there nothing you could do to at least stop her or incapacitate her, so you could take care of Zoom?"** Barry asked his older self

 **"I had tried everything that could have been tried. Nothing worked, much to my displeasure, but I had to take out Zoom, if she was in the way … it meant I had to deal with her first. On a warm sunny summer afternoon, I battled with the one I loved for almost 6 hours until she was drained. Nobody came to her aid, she was out of power, she had no warmth to drain after covering half the city with ice in our battle, killing too many people to count by inflicting severe hypothermia. I thought that I could save her, the love I still kept in my heart for her was always giving me hope, but looking at her grin and the enjoyment she took in using people to take away their heat to battle me with, convinced me that she could not be saved. Even then, I tried the power suppressor cuffs, but they wouldn't work on her. She tried to kill me regardless. There was no longer a Caitlin Snow. There was only Killer Frost.**

 **That day, I had to do the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. I had to kill her. While I hated her guts for killing and ousting my friends to Zoom. I still loved her dearly. My love for her was the only reason that I made it quick … one hard turn, a snapped neck and she was in my arms, breathing no more** " the figure continued. You could feel the way his voice came out was almost like it was painful, like someone had a stranglehold on his neck and was choking him little by little. The way the words almost struggled to get out. The fact that this would be the worst thing you could ask of someone to do. Kill the person they love most. **"Seeing her like that, something in me snapped. I cried until there were no more tears to cry. Until I could barely see through my swollen eyes. I lost the red suit and the mask and got the cowl and became ... something else. Menace. I buried her near my dad, with a small inscription " _I will love you, always"_ and with our son. Which of course I had to bury an empty casket, because after she lost the pregnancy I never managed to find out where his little body was, but I was beyond feeling anything anymore. **

**The anger and the hate made me faster than ever before. I could do things that were impossible to me when I was younger. So I went after Zoom. His army of metahumans could not even touch me, most of them were dead before they reached the ground. Broken necks, pierced hearts, twisted members, people that I killed with my own two hands. Or even worse, maimed and left bleeding on the floor prey to their own loss of blood that would have taken a long couple of hours. I didn't care about life, motives, reasons, all I cared about was ridding the world of murderers. Because of my speed, Zoom was nothing compared to me, he was a snail caught in a hurricane thinking if he's supremely lucky he might survive. He did not, not for long anyway"**

 **"You killed him, didn't you?"** Caitlin managed to utter

 **"Indeed I did. But made it painfully slow. My CSI and MD knowledge made it easy for me to torture him, then bring him back, then torture him again. I had read all of Caitlin's medical books and journals while I recovered. I had been preparing for that day for a very long time. It took him over a month to die and even then, he died because he overdosed on velocity 9 and his body turned to ashes. Oh how I wished back then to have him another month. But sadly ... life did not want it that way"**

Barry and Caitlin were now afraid of the man before them. Someone who can do that, even to their worst enemy was no man anymore. He was a monster. But they understood, his child dying and him having to kill his wife … was something that nobody had to go through, that pain would have changed anyone, especially when there is the added "bonus" that a maniac kills your friends and your adoptive father and sister and puts them on display in the town square.

 **"In the next months the city was quiet. But not because of the Flash. The Flash was no more. The Menace killed everyone that did not obey the law. Of course there were limits, like you don't murder someone for a bank robbery, I took off a leg, an arm, a few fingers. I learned to use my vibrations so cleanly and swiftly that my hand was more precise at cutting than a scalpel and sharper than a katana. But rapists? Murderers? Kidnappers? Oh yeah they just went to the dead pile. The streets were clean and all the people knew me. They knew I was a killer. Even so, they considered me a necessary evil. I had continued to help the population of Central City and almost died a few times too doing that and I had earned their respect, but they didn't fear me. Even in my rage and pain, I never hurt an innocent, only scumbags. This went on for nearly 2 years. Central City was the cleanest city in the country. The crime rate was almost nonexistent, people could be out on the streets at night without needing to protect themselves. Every criminal element was either in the trash chute, or in Iron Heights. But the death rate was too high. Everyone was worried about me, but I didn't notice. I had been working alone for such a long time that I was pretty much a heart of stone at the time. I was nothing compared to my former self. Just a husk of a man that had a duty to perform and to keep a promise he had made for himself while watching the mother of his child dead in his arms"**

 **"What was that promise?"** Caitlin asked

 **"That I would keep Central City and its inhabitants safe. The cost didn't matter, all I wanted is to keep the promise I made to Caitlin that day of our last fight. Nothing else mattered"** Menace answered

 **"But were you really alone? Did nobody come to help? I mean now we have friends that we can call"** Barry questioned.

 **"I told them to stay away. They were in serious danger and after I lost so many people I didn't want to lose all of them. But they did come to me later. First one was Oliver, but he couldn't help, even though he was a close friend and mentor who had had his own pain, he didn't understand what was going on with me. Then Ray and Thea tried. But they could not even stop me for enough time to talk to them and then … someone could. They managed to get someone that, with the help of Ray, could catch up to me and even hold me for a chat. She risked her life doing so, I did not want to talk, did not want to be disturbed from my crusade of murder, but she did it anyway. With the help of a tachyon absorber and a modified version of the nanobots I used on Zoom she finally managed to get me. Talk about irony, my own idea used against me. I didn't want to listen, but she made me listen. It was the first time in my life when someone slapped me so hard that I had to put my jaw back in place. She made me open up and grieve and cry all that I have lost. My friends, my family, the woman that I loved and lost and my child. She was next to me, she left her own city unprotected to come help me get off the path of destruction I was set on walking alone. At first, I didn't want her around, but as time passed, I began to count on her more and more, knowing she would be there, to help whenever I needed it.**

 **Because of her I returned back to my old costume. The Menace turned back into the Flash. It took a long while. Almost three years to grieve for my lost love and she was there every step of the way, being my anchor to the small piece of sanity I had retained after being so broken for so long. We learned how to hop universes whenever we wanted to and not just using Ray's help, so I would make an appearance when she needed help in her city, she would do the same in my cit. After so many years of pain, I finally allowed myself to feel something again. I finally allowed myself to love again"** The man in front of them was softly crying as he told his story.

 **"Who was she?"** Both Barry and Caitlin asked at the same time.

 **"You have met her before. The only person that could theoretically go head to head with the Flash and survive. Actually not only survive, but can dislocate my jaw with a slap as well"** the man told the couple. **"Oh, and is not a speedster villain, from the future, past or another dimension"** he smirked

 **"There is only one person that I know which fits into that category. A certain blonde super powered Alien from the planet Krypton"** Caitlin spoke

 **"Supergirl"** Barry completed her sentence.

 **"Yes, sweet, beautiful, shy, executive assistant Kara Danvers. From earth 38. She had helped on a number of issues on our earth and Oliver managed to contact her. She left her city in a heartbeat, talking to her cousin to cover for her. She even took into account the fact that Ray's machine may break down and she would be stuck here forever. With me. She didn't care. I had no idea, but she told me later on when we had become close. She had loved me ever since that first time in the meadow when she saw me. When I jumped by accident to her earth and she threw me back in that breach she wished she didn't have to. Most of her relationships on that Earth never worked, they were just shadows of what she would have wanted to have with me.**

 **She became the one that helped me over those years. The woman I came to want around every waking moment, the one that I could not live without, the one who earned my respect, the beautiful person I cherished and later on, the one that taught me that I can love someone again, the way I used to love my Caitlin. She knew everything about me and, more importantly, she accepted everything about me without judging my actions. I was for a good part of those years a heartless monster, the same as Zoom if not worse. My heart had died that day with the love I had to kill. I did not think about the consequences, I only acted. Out of revenge, out of pain, out of lost love. I would always have Caitlin in my heart and my memories of Killer Frost had been freed of the pain they usually brought. But because of her, my lovable sunny powerhouse of an alien, I started to live again. She was the one that convinced me to travel back and change everything. I did not understand her reasons, we had a life together we had even been dating for a while, everything was going great and yet she still wanted me to return. Sweet Lovable Kara, she was ready to lose me forever even though she did not have me for very long. Well, now that I altered the timeline I guess she did lose me forever. So, with her blessing and a swift kick in the ass, I jumped back in time … to six months before the accelerator accident"**

 **"How… why would she convince you to jump back if your life had gotten on track?"** Caitlin asked confused with Barry nodding to that question

 **"I do not know. That is something I never understood about her. I guess she thought that however much I loved her, my heart would always belong to Caitlin. She was wrong, because as much as it hurt me, I had to move on from the rage and anger. She had a positivity about her, a smile that could always light my life when she came into it. She even was positive enough about the jump, even though it was very obvious that if I jump and save Caitlin, she would most likely not be in my life anymore and she still made me do it. I did not want to. We fought for days on end on that subject. Trust me, you do not want to go against the wishes of a pissed off Kryptonian, unless you want to float in space for all eternity. I knew what was going to happen though, the timeline would disappear and mine and Kara's future with it. I hope what I would just disintegrate and leave this plane of existence to end my suffering, but … boy was I wrong"** he continued, but kept a few details back to himself, they were of no consequence to the two speedsters.

 **"The Speed Force?"** Barry and Caitlin asked.

 **"Ah, I see you have met them already. Yes. Apparently there are penalties for messing around with timelines. After you two were in a coma, I was taken by the Speed Force and there was a trial held. I was found guilty of altering timelines with intent, something that normally would have been punished with me having my speed taken away. But the Speed Force understood that I had attenuating circumstances and I received my punishment, I was not to help you or contact you in any way and I was to live the rest of my days, which considering I am a speedster might have meant a lot of time, on this earth. Alone. There was the loophole that if you found me on your own and you accepted my presence here, we could talk and I would be allowed to help after, but I could not do any direct actions to that effect, you had to come to me on your own.**

 **I had thought to ignore my sentence and help you in the battles you have fought until now, but then I saw something that I didn't see in my time. Two heroes in sync, in thought and in action, fighting side by side with their friends. Friends who would die for them, as they would for any one of the people that were present. One man that could run at the speed of light potentially and one woman that could freeze an entire continent if she wanted to. You two have become more powerful together than I ever was alone even when I was full of anger and hate. Your love is what made you strong. So I didn't interfere with anything. I thought that I already messing with your lives once would be enough. I did however leave you a clue and some stuff that I thought you might find useful later. While I could not contact you, I could go to the Labs when nobody was there, and seeing that I had the same fingerprints and iris configuration as the real Barry Allen, that was easy.**

 **The second punishment was that I can no longer go through the Speed Force to other dimensions. Nor can I travel through time. My speed remains, but every time I open a gateway to a different world or time, I cannot enter it. It is like a wall is blocking me from entering the portals. I have tried this several hundred times, before my broken bones stopped me and I realized that it was useless. I am about 10 times faster than Zoom was and yet, I am stuck here, in this place. Because there already was a Flash here, I had to become the Menace again. But I had to stay in the shadows, not to draw attention, not to let the world know there was another speedster here. So I saved people from the shadows. It was my only comfort in this life of loneliness me and Kara had decided upon, in order to give you two the life that I almost had"**

 **"We had detected your speed and your heat signature before, but since we saw you weren't a threat, even more so helping people in a pinch, we didn't want to approach you. I am curious about something thought. Why tell us all this now? Even though we asked what happened to you. You gave us amazing detail and I suspect you didn't want to because it brought out some pretty bad memories. Also you might have run into me being Jealous about you dating someone else"** Caitlin asked the Menace, trying to lighten the mood

 **"You have your Barry, jealousy would be foolish and you are anything but foolish. Cait. As for why I told you all of this …Forgiveness, redemption, taking a boulder off my chest, call it as you will. I played god with your lives. For all I knew it could have ended worse still. How much more, I don't know since my timeline was pretty much hell for me. But I took a chance and that chance paid off even though you two had nothing to say in it. For that, I am sorry"** he replied with a stern voice even thought he had a wide grin on his face.

 **"What you went through was hell and you did indeed play god with us. But, I have to say, it could have ended way worse. Because Barry was by my side, he helped me conquer my fears and banish Killer Frost from existence. The lightning in turn brought us together, gave us a bond that only we two share. I can hear his thoughts and feel what he does, as he does with me. This is something nobody else on this earth has and nobody can understand the beauty that it brings. We fight side by side and we live side by side. The random event of that lightning strike brought two people together faster than you could ever think. We might have thought that was fate. It was not, it was just your attempt to not have us go through all that you did. Just for that, I am really grateful. You gave me Barry, this adorkable grinning husband I have here, because of you I have a handle on my powers, I can run like the wind and our lives are beautiful together. I forgive you"** Caitlin said taking one of the man's hands into her own

 **"You were me once. Now you aren't. The shadow of your former killer self still looms above you. I can tell, but now you are older and wiser, you know killing does not solve anything except bring more pain and the only thing worth fighting for in this life is love. As Cait said, you did play god with us. With that out of the way, I would never want to be you and thanks to what you did, I am not. That is something I will probably be forever thankful for. You went through hell and high water, you lost yourself, then found yourself, then lost the person you manage to love again just to give us a fighting chance at something so wonderful, something you wished you had. If anything, I am not mad that you time jumped, I am truly sorry for you. Nobody deserves the life that you had and the pain that you have experienced. Instead, I will just say this. Thank you for mine. I forgive you as well"** Barry took the other hand in his, lightning crackling between the two. Menace looked at them and tears started running on his face,

 **"Thank you. You have no idea how long all of this stood on my chest. I thought you two would hate me, but it seems I have forgotten the person that I was and that my beautiful Cait was too."**

 **"Was it because of you that I kept having the flashbacks that kept appearing in my head almost like memories?"** Barry asked

 **"Yes, I suspect so. That night when I pushed Caitlin into you so she could get struck by lightning, the tail end of that shock hit me when you were on the ground. It came out of you and hit me as well. It would explain why you had some of my memories, but Caitlin did not"** The man in the cowl reasoned through his explanation.

 **"And the … help you gave us. Was that the fact that we somehow one day found the Gideon room open with a set of speed equations we had never seen and two versions of a mini tachyon accelerator that were already built?"** Caitlin inquired

 **"Yes. In my timeline I had run back in time to before the Reverse Flash was killed and asked him to help me get faster. I didn't tell him why or how. But he gave me those equations. As for how I built the tachyon enhancers, let's just say a couple of hours for me is equivalent to a couple of weeks. I had all I needed in the Labs and I knew how to get around and avoid all the surveillance Cisco had put in place. Considering I had to build stuff with Ray, I have learned a thing or two. So I finished those and left instructions for the Gideon room to open the precise day I remembered that I wanted to go back. Effectively nullifying the need for you to jump"** The other speedster answered

 ** _"I think he has suffered enough. It's time that he has another chance at life, don't you think?"_** Barry asked his wife mentally

 ** _"Sure, but if he can't interact with us … then what can we do except come visit from time to time?"_** She replied looking at him

 ** _"He did say that if we'd find him he could interact and help us afterward, but that is not what I had in mind. I think we should give him back the chance to recover that which he has lost"_** Barry answered to which Caitlin gave him a weird look **" _He cannot create breaches, that is true, but that is only true about breaches which use the Speed Force. We have someone that can create those portals without needing the force that drives us as speedsters. Remember?"_** He smiled and Caitlin's eyes lit up.

 ** _"You're right. We can have Cisco build him a breach generator, but ... where would he go?"_** she thought to her husband

 ** _"You know where. This is a man that has already lost the first person he loved. We cannot give him that person, because, well. You`re mine and mine alone"_** He smirked at her and she kissed him softly **" _But even after all the killing, adversity, pain and loss, he managed to love again. I say we give him the chance to have that life. He might fail, he might succeed, but after all he has been through we can make it so that he at least has that chance. That person is still there, and well ... probably still single, if what he remembers from his timeline is correct"_** Barry responded

 ** _"Kara"_** she said as they both nodded. **" _I knew she had a crush on you. That did explain the weird looks and blushes she used to get when you were around her. Even if I was there with you"_**

 ** _"And to be fair, you did kind of told her that time to "get her own". Maybe now she can"_** Barry smiled at his beautiful wife. He managed to overhear the discussion his wife and Clark had back at the wedding.

 **"You two are freaking me out with that whole telepathic communication thing, this silence is, as they say, deafening"** the man smiled. A smile they both recognized. The goofy smile of Barry Allen. They could see now that his face stopped being grim and dark, a shadow of happiness was starting to appear on his face **"Mind talking aloud so people who are not blessed with a telepathic bond can use their ears to interpret the sounds that come out of your mouths?"** he said with a comical tone

 **"Barry, I think we can do something for you"** Caitlin started **"You said that you cannot travel universes because you cannot use the Speed Force portals, well ... there is another way. Because of your meddling Cisco is a metahuman as well now. One with the power to open breaches of his own to other universes. Those types of breaches are not dependent on the Speed Force"**

 **"You also say Kara had a little crush on me ever since she met me. So … maybe you can get back a bit of what you lost, if that is still true for this Kara. We are going to send you to her world. Because obviously I have my wife so it's not like I can go hopping universes chasing a girl in a skirt. But you have no one now. The mother of your child has died and your last girlfriend convinced you that you should try to get her back, even if she has to lose you. Maybe it's time that you aren't alone any longer"** her husband chimed in.

 **"Wait, how, what? Cisco can create breaches?"** the man said with a hopeful look in his eyes. **"Would you really do that for me? Why? I don't deserve that"**

 **"Yes we would do that for you and wrong. You do deserve a chance to be happy. All your chips have been taken away from you by the hellish life you had. This settles it. You my friend are going to Earth 38. Call it … a little token of our appreciation. I'm not saying that this Kara will like you, she might not like older men. She might not like your background, or your past. She is younger than when you were together in that timeline. So everything from there is up for grabs. But maybe it's time you took a shot"** The Flash said **"Come with us. We're going to STAR"**

They sped to the Labs only to find Cisco there tinkering on one of his projects. When he saw the older Barry he froze

 **"Nice outfit? Where did you shop? At the Arrow Cave Depression Emporium?"** he managed to blurt out before the hooded figure gave him a very long hug. Cisco managed to see the face behind the cowl and muttered **"Oh great. Time travel. Past or Future?"**

 **"Neither, Cisco, he is … a man out of time now, leaping from timeline to timeline, trying to put right what once went wrong, hoping his next leap would be the leap home. Or at least he did until he got canned by the Speed Force"** Barry motioned toward the Menace, smirking at Cisco **"I would explain further but we can do that after he has gone where he needs to go"**

 **"Did you seriously make up that whole explanation just to use that reference with me?"** Cisco smirked **"Of course you did. Where does he need to go?"** the engineer asked with a surprised look in his eyes

 **"To have an encounter with his future. We need you to open a breach to earth 38"** He motioned toward the man in the hood **"As for you, I don't want to ever see that suit ever again when we come visiting. Take one of my suits. You will need it, Flash"** Barry smiled widely

 **"Do you think I even deserve that name after all that I've done?"** Menace asked surprised.

 **"Yes, we think you do. But you will have to work for it, until you think you deserve it as we do, which might take a long time and a lot of work. But, you are Barry, so I know you won't stop fighting"** Caitlin answered **"So get into that suit already and get rid of that Arrow themed depression fest you have going on there"**

 **"You were always bossy like that, Cait, whenever you felt the need to be"** he smiled and flashed into one of Barry's spare suits.

 **"We'll have Cisco get you a new one when we come visit. You don't mind, right?"** Barry asked his friend **"By the way, think you can program the armlet that is in his suit to sync up and connect to Kara's?"** he got an idea.

 **"Nope I don't mind at all. He is still you. Which means he is still my best friend. And yeah of course I can"** The engineer reprogrammed the bracer that was on the other suit in a few minutes and they all flashed down to the pedestal room. Cisco put on his gloves and goggles and opened a breach to earth 38, as he had done several times before.

 **"There you go"** Caitlin commented **"Now your bracer will sync with Kara's when you get there. That way you can monitor her vitals, power level and everything else you might want to. It will help since I think you will want to be next to her and assist with whatever problem she gets herself into"**

 **"Cisco, I have always considered you my best friend. Glad to see timelines don't change much. Thank you for this, now I can at least protect Kara the way I could never protect my Caitlin. This is a folio with stuff I have gathered across the years. Investments and assets. I thought that if I remain here it might help to not starve. I don't know how much these are actually worth, but since we have the same name it's only normal that I leave them to you"** He said giving Barry a dossier with his name on it **"You have given me a reason to live. Hope you can come visit soon. Remember"** he put his hand up in a Vulcan salute which made Barry and Cisco chuckle **"I am, and forever shall be, your friend. If you ever need me, now that we have been properly introduced, I'll be here to help. All you need to do is call"** He was without his mask and they all saw the beautiful genuine smile the man gave them. One of his Barry Allen patented grins that Caitlin fell in love with. For the first time since they have met them his green eyes held something they never did before, a glimmer of hope. You could see the happiness on his face as he walked through the breach, Cisco closing it behind him. Caitlin picked up her communicator and dialed in Kara. Her voice was warm and full of joy as always

 **"Hey, Kara"**

 **"Hey, Caitlin. What's up, do you need help with anything?"** Kara asked from the other side of the line

 **"Actually no. I called to give you a heads up. You will have a guest coming to your earth. Which will probably want to stay permanently. I thought you should know in advance"** Caitlin told the alien.

 **"Anyone I know?"** she asked a bit surprised.

 **"Wait and see. But I suspect you'll like the surprise we just sent you"** Barry added though his own communicator.

 **"Ok, you two are weirding me out right now. Where is this "surprise" supposed to appear?"** Supergirl inquired.

 **"In the field where we first met. Apparently Cisco can open the easiest breaches there instead. Besides, we didn't know if you were at home or alone, so opening a breach in your proximity might not have been a good idea"** Caitlin added.

 **"It's good you didn't, I was at CatCo. It would have been a bit weird for a swirling vortex to appear in front of me over there. Thanks for thinking about that"** She thanked the two

 **"Anyway. We have to go. Take care and hope you like the "surprise" that we have sent your way"** Barry told the blonde.

 **"Can I at least ask what it is?"** the blonde tried to get a hint

 **"No, Kara. That's why it's a surprise. Come on"** Caitlin replied.

 **"Trust us. You are going to love it and we can't tell you much more than that. But since we're your friends we aren't going to send you a bag of poop, unless it was for April Fools and we're not in April"** The speedster said with a stern tone, but ended up chuckling instead at the inadvertent joke he had made

 **"All right. You two take care as well"** Kara closed the line.

 **"That was a really strange experience. Mind telling me what that was about and why it was so important that it made you cut your honeymoon short?"** Cisco asked quite surprised.

 **"Come on. Call Bette and have her come here. We can go back to the mountains for the week end and we can fill you in on this amazing story we just heard"** Caitlin smiled

 **"Would that be all right? I mean ... we wouldn't want to intrude on your honey moon nights"** Cisco asked politely but with a grin on his face.

 **"You won't. Older Barry had a second cabin there. You can crash in that. So we'll have our privacy and you can have yours"** Caitlin grinned.

 **"Awesome. Let me call her and we can go"**

The couple remained in the pedestal room for a few minutes longer, wondering if He had gotten to his destination ok and wishing him good luck. However his life might be from now on, they knew they would meet him again, since they were close friends with the Girl of Steel and she might come just for lounging around, they were certain that it wasn't the last they have seen of Menace. Bette had just arrived so they flashed back to the cabin with her and Cisco.

After a few long hours of storytelling, and Cisco nearly fainting a few times they managed to get to the end of the story they had been told.

 **"Wow, he had it rough"** Bette commented as she roasted some marshmallows on the roaring fire

 **"I can't believe that he lost so much. I mean I was dead, Caitlin was dead, his kid was dead, Felicity died too, Joe and Iris were gone. Everyone who considered a friend or family in Central City was pretty much gone. I'm not really surprised he went all Exterminate, Exterminate on Zoom and his cronies. I don't blame him either, I would have probably done the exact same in his shoes"** Cisco spoke. It was obvious that he had a heavy heart and felt for his friend. Even if he was from another timeline.

 **"What I find unbelievable is that Kara left her world to come be with him and take him out of his slump"** Barry continued **"We did meet her multiple times, and the weird looks, the dazzling smiles and the unexpected blushes were there. But I had no clue that she actually had a crush on me. Here or on any other timeline. To be fair however, I only had eyes for one woman so even if she did, I wouldn't have seen it. I didn't even want to believe it after Caitlin told me that she had relayed to Kara to "get her own" me"** the speedster didn't mention that he had heard her and Clark discuss it at the wedding, but it was something that they had talked about while they were on their honeymoon.

 **"Isn't that sweet. I did. That's why I invited her to the wedding. I had no idea wed find another you in this world and I thought it would give her some closure to be able to move on. It was obvious to me at least, but to be fair what's not to love. You will always be you, Barry and your most important superpower isn't your speed, it's the way you manage to bring all of us together"** Caitlin said to her husband.

 **"To Menace"** Barry raised a glass **"May he find what he has lost"**

 **"May he return to being the Flash and find himself again"** Caitlin raised hers

 **"Hope he gets the girl in the end"** Cisco raised his glass prompting a slap on the back of his head by Bette, who was smiling at him, prompting him to change his toast **"I hope he finds the one he loves"**

 **"To the Flash, the one here and the one there"** Bette raised her glass.

 **"And to us. We will always be more powerful together"** Barry said, but everyone knew what he meant

 **Earth 38 – Meadow**

Barry walked through the breach, did not speed at all, it was a strange feeling for him, usually when he breached he had to run. Walking was not something he did very often. The place was familiar to him. Even after all that time passed, he still remembered the first time he had met Kara Danvers. This was the meadow where he inadvertently ran her with her clothes catching fire after she fell out a window. He did not control his new found speed and they raced all across the country side to this place. He sat down looking at the beautiful landscape with his mask off until he heard a familiar sound above him and he turned his head. There was Supergirl, with her eyes ablaze which immediately powered down as he saw who the intruder was.

 **"Barry!"** she yelled with a beautiful smile on her face as she landed next to him **"Didn't we just talk? How come you`re here, alone without Caitlin. You said someone was coming to my earth for a more permanent residence"** she said with a worried tone.

 **"That permanent resident would be me. I'm not Barry, well I am, but not quite …"** he sat there rubbing the back of his head **"You see, I'm not really the Barry you know. I mean I am, but older. Eight years older to be exact"**

 **"Say what now?"** she made a confused face.

 **"I did come back … but this time I came here for another reason"** he smiled at her

 **"What would that reason be?"** she asked

 **"You, Kara Danvers"** He answered simply

 **"What do you mean for me? Wait, you`re kidding right? You have to be kidding. You aren't kidding. What about Caitlin?"** she started to babble which provoked a smile on Barry's face, reminding him of his old friend Felicity. The scarlet color on Kara's face told him everything he needed to know.

 **"A lot has happened in my timeline in those 8 years. My Caitlin died. I have grieved for her and I decided it is time to move on. No, I am definitely not kidding. I asked Barry to send me here, because while I still have my speed, I cannot cross between universes anymore, or move through time. A … small punishment from the Speed Force for … playing with the timelines. So I thought of you Girl of Steel, maybe you might need a hand"** He explained

 **"What made you think of me?"** Kara asked with wide eyes, **"We didn't meet that many times"**

 **"Not now. In my timeline you came through quite often and helped us with some of our larger problems. Then … when I lost my way, you came to help me get on the right path. In a sense, you were the person that turned the darkness to light. I have done things I will never forget, out of anger, pain and revenge. So how could I forget the person that turned me back into the Flash? That person was you, Kara"** he said looking in her eyes. She could see the shadows passing on his face, like a lingering darkness what would forever be with him. She swore that she would extinguish that darkness, any way she could.

 **"I… I'm so happy that you`re here"** Kara managed to articulate **"But you still have to explain to me this whole you being older, the fact that Caitlin was dead in that timeline, the fact that there's another Barry back on his Earth and what was that about a punishment from the Speed Force? Barry Allen, what did you do?"** she asked with an authoritative voice.

Barry started to cry while hugging Kara as tightly as he could. She was baffled at first but then hugged him back letting him let out all that came to him. Kara did not know, but those were tears of joy, he has finally managed to see the woman that he loved so much after his Caitlin died.

 **"I've missed you so much, Kara Danvers. Or Kara Zor-El, which is your alien name, which I still find really cool even after almost 9 years now. It's a long story"** He managed to say through the tears.

 **"I have time"** Kara gave him one of those beautiful sunny smiles he loved so much, she was the same one as his Kara. The same responses and blushes. The same crush that started as a just that and became something way more beautiful. Now at least he had hope, something that he did not think he would regain ever again.

 **"How much time do you have? It's quite a long story, these past 8 years, years that I have managed to erase thanks to my returning through time, have been literally hell for me"** Barry managed to calm down but still holding and being held by her.

 **"Is forever long enough for you?"** she smiled taking him up into the sky with her. Barry was shocked at the blunt response the beautiful blonde gave him.

 **"Does that answer mean what I think it means?"** Barry was starting to blush furiously

 **"Maybe, it can mean whatever you want it to mean"** she grinned at him

 **"Why, Kara Danvers, I didn't know you liked older men"** Barry smiled brightly at her.

 **"Only true when the one in question is named Barry Allen"** She smiled as they both flew through the sky hand in hand. That answer was enough for him. Even if this was not his Kara, she could still be and she still was the same person that helped him long ago. He was happy, and you could read that all over his face.

Kara was over the moon. She had initially thought that the surprise her friends would give her was something so minor that had nothing to do with anything related to Barry. Ever since she had been to the wedding she decided that it was for the best that she didn't think about him, but that failed entirely when he was in her dreams and in her thoughts almost all of the time. The fact that Caitlin told her to get herself another one had sparked some crazy ideas in her head. Once she actually wanted to go and ask the two speedsters to find her another Barry in another dimension, or even go back and get herself one from the past. She immediately realized that all those ideas not only were crazy, but really stupid as well. She didn't know the extent of which time travel might affect the current reality, but having her own Barry right now with her was something that she was really happy about.

The bubbly blonde almost instantly forgot about any sort of ideas that she had and focused on the person next to her. He was definitely the Barry she had a crush on, but at the same time he was not. It dawned on her that all the experiences this one had did indeed mold him into another person. It didn't matter, she had her own scarlet speedster and she couldn't be happier.

* * *

AN : And there you go. i hope this chapter answers some of the questions i've been asked over the course of publishing this story. Hope you like the small twists and turns, if you didn't see it coming already. Enjoy.


	47. Threat

Fall was in the air, the two speedsters enjoyed their summer and why wouldn't they have, it was the greatest summer of their lives. They got married, they had their honeymoon, they finally found out what had happened that night during the accelerator explosion, found a new ally and helped him, hopefully, find his way himself. Life was good. STAR Labs went into full functionality and a lot of people that were employed there before the particle accelerator explosion wanted to come back and were received with open arms. The research they did was beneficial to everyone, Barry and Caitlin making it clear that if they had a bright idea, they should always come to them or go to Cisco if it was an engineering related thing.

The two while not being out on patrol enjoyed just walking through the labs and trying to help people with their problems. For some the fact that the Bosses would check in on you now and again was a bit stressing, but when they say how the people acted and that they always wanted to help if it was something in their field of expertise, the requests for assistance started to come in. Of course just from the departments that had something to do with their area of expertise.

Barry and Caitlin enjoyed immensely working together, but that didn't come as any sort of surprise. While the actual scientists had no idea who they were and what they could do, their help was greatly appreciated. They had come to be seen as geniuses in the Labs helping along complex bioengineering issues or genetics related. The two had just come back from helping one of their researchers with a new type of cellular skin graft that was an upgrade to the old one they had already put out. With a certain type of power the cells would continue to duplicate and the graft would continually regenerate what was underneath, but the challenge was to actually make it compatible with the person that was receiving it.

 **"Life is good"** Barry lounged in one of the chairs behind the central console block in the Cortex. **"I have a beautiful wife, no crazy ass speedster demon has threatened us in any way, the crime rate is down, we have an enormous amount of money at our disposal. It's almost like playing on easy mode with cheats"**

 **"I know, the extra free time makes us able to help the people in the lab. Reminds me of the good old days before the particle accelerator. No Eobard, No Zoom. No metahumans, just me working on my projects"** Caitlin smiled at him while she was tinkering with something herself.

 **"I wouldn't mind me working on your project either"** the speedster replied.

 **"Then come he…"** Caitlin returned and saw his face. It was perfectly clear what project he was referring to and it had nothing to do with science, more with … physical exercise **"You dork. Is your mind always in the gutter?"**

 **"Only when you`re near me. Oh. Yeah, my minds always in the gutter then. Fair point"** Barry replied and looked at her coyly. Cisco and Bette came into the Cortex and they looked rather worried. **"What's up with you two? You look like someone died"**

 **"It's a bit worse than that, Barry. Remember our friendly neighborhood Black Siren from earth 2?"** Cisco asked.

 **"Yeah, the Laurel doppelganger that came through the breach back when we captured Zoom. Didn't we put her in the pipeline?"** Caitlin replied.

 **"We did. Here's the problem. She isn't there anymore"** Bette said with a worried look on her face.

 **"Wait, how is that possible? Because of the new system she should have fallen unconscious the moment she came out of the cell"** Barry replied.

 **"That is something I don't know. What I do know is this"** She put up a piece of security footage from the pipeline **"This guy let her out. The system worked, you can clearly see that she fell unconscious after exiting the perimeter of the cell. He just took her and left. Here is the strange thing. The guy does not appear on any other security footage until he appears in the pipeline and he doesn't appear anywhere after he took Siren"** Bette showed them

 **"This guy's armor looks a lot like the one Thea's dad was wearing when we met him back during the Savage incident. Also doesn't the way his armor look remind you of someone, Barry?"** Caitlin looked at her husband.

 **"You`re right. It reminds me a little of Oliver's costume. But why take Siren, if he could come in here without triggering alarms, why not release all the metahumans that are in there?"** the speedster said with a weird look and then something clicked.

 **"Because he wants to use her against Oliver"** both said at the same time. Prompting a comical look from Cisco and Bette. Caitlin got her phone and phoned in the archer.

 **"Oliver, we have a problem. Or you might have one very soon"** she spoke.

 **"A problem, what would that be?"** the archer asked pretty interested

 **"A while back we caught a rogue metahuman that came through the portal with Zoom, to wreak havoc on this earth. That metahuman was the earth 2 double of Laurel. We didn't really want to say anything, because she was ... well, evil"** She explained.

 **"All right. So, if you didn't want to mention it, why now?"** Ollie questioned.

 **"Because she has escaped from the pipeline. Not by her lonesome either, she was basically abducted by a man that had something very similar to league armor on"** Barry told him, Caitlin had turned the phone on speaker.

 **"But if that double lived in Central City. Why tell me about it? She will more than likely hang over there and at one point when she makes waves you two will capture her again."** The voice reasoned.

 **"Ollie. It has to do with the guy that had league armor on. I'll have Cisco send Felicity the footage. Take a look at it, see if you recognize anything. We thought you might want to know if somehow, I don't know, you end up with two Laurels and you don't know which is which. Except, one of them might be trying to kill you"** Caitlin replied.

 **"That would be bothersome. Thanks. I'll take a look at what you send and if I have anything I'll contact you later"** He told them closing the line.

 **"Meanwhile, I want you two to go over the footage from that time. Something must be wrong. Either someone hacked into our mainframe and modified the video or that guy is Peek-A-Boo's brother or something. It wouldn't surprise me if he was some kind of metahuman that could either teleport or become invisible"** Barry told Cisco and Bette.

 **"All right. Well go check and let you know what we found out, or if there is anything we missed"** The two left in a hurry.

 **"I'll never jinx a peaceful life again"** Barry said with a bit of annoyance in his voice. Caitlin felt that and just came over to him and gave him a kiss, making him calm down immediately.

 **"It doesn't matter, it us against the bad guys. It's been like that for a while. We'll manage to figure something out"** she replied with a beautiful smile. They flashed out and got some food. By the time they finished Oliver called back.

 **"Barry, Caitlin, me and Felicity are on the Jet to Central City. I know who the man was who abducted Meta Laurel. I need to put you up to speed on a few things"** he told them.

 **"All right. What's your ETA? We'll come get you from the airport"** Caitlin replied.

 **"An hour at the most. We'll call when we land"** Felicity told them but the line got cut before they could say anything else.

 **"That was strange. Do we have any way of keeping an eye on the jet?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"Yea, we have a direct link to it via the satellites. But even if we did, we don't know how to pilot a jet anyway"** His wife looked at him. He scoffed.

 **"I guess it's time to learn"** He went to another console and put up everything that he could find on piloting a plane and started reading. She was keeping an eye on the planes internals, but everything seemed fine for now. That didn't take long. On their approach to the airport the readouts started to flash red on both of the engines. Barry had read enough until then to know what those mean **"Two engines have had burnouts. It didn't seem like mechanical failure either"**

 **"Are they going to be ok landing with just two engines?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"Cait, this is not a commercial airliner. It's a small private jet, remember? Two engines are all it had. I hope it can keep its glide path or else they are going to fall out of the sky like a piece of rock"** Barry replied to her looking pretty worried.

 **"Oh, right, it's the jet that STAR West has, not the one that we bought for ourselves. How far are they from the airport?"** she inquired. Cisco walked casually into the cortex

 **"About 2 km. Cisco, glad you`re here. Can you link the frequency of the jet to our comms? We need to know what they do. Their engines have failed and the gliding might not be enough to make them land"** Barry looked at the engineer.

 **"No problem. Go. I'll take care of it"** he nodded and the two were out the door in their suits. As they reached the airport the frequency of the plane had been patched it. It was worse than they feared, besides not having any sort of propulsion, the landing gear had been blown off as well.

 **"Damn. How are they supposed to land anyway?"** the speedster looked at his wife.

 **"I think I have an idea. I'll make an ice sheet and they can set down on that. I'll do some walls that will progressively get tighter. That way the plane will brake itself. It doesn't matter if the wings get shredded or if the jet gets crushed. At the moment the only thing that matters is that the pilots and those two are safe"** Caitlin looked at him.

 **"Go do what you said. I'm right behind you. Call out when you need energy, I'll throw a few bolts your way"** He replied and the two started running under the plane that had begun its descent.

 **"Cisco, tell the pilots to land on the ice that's forming. Caitlin and I are trying to stop the plane"** Barry talked into the comm. A few seconds later instead of trying to move away from the ice on the runway the plane turned straight into it and hit the ground with its belly. Because of the ice it did not offer that much friction and the walls were keeping it leveled. Caitlin did exactly what she said. The plane skidding to a stop at the end of the runway without half a belly and no wings. But everyone was all right. Flash ran back and forth a few times to melt the ice that Frost had created so that the other planes could land and they were there as the four got out of the plane. Fortunately, the staff and their two friends were intact. The pilots were not surprised to see the two heroes. They had been sighted around the jet before.

 **"Thank you for the save"** Felicity quipped as they were running back to STAR Labs.

 **"What was so important that you had to come all the way out here to tell us, Oliver?"** Barry asked quite surprised as they stopped back in the Cortex with Cisco cheering a bit.

 **"The man you had on tape over there calls himself Prometheus. He appeared in Star City a while back. He is driven by revenge and he wants to exact that revenge on me. His origin or who he actually is unknown at this time, but he has consistently gone after my inner circle. Family, friend, coworkers, just to get to me and make me suffer"** He told the two quite bluntly.

 **"Ok, I see why you needed the privacy. But why come and tell us that?"** Caitlin asked surprised.

 **"Simple. You are in that circle of friends. I don't know how long this guy has been watching me, but for the last year you have made your presence shown in Star City and you have been to our once a few times. I would be on the lookout for this guy"** The archer said pretty convinced that the guy was a threat

 **"I see. Well, I guess he can try to kidnap us although that would be bad for him"** Caitlin smiled.

 **"I wouldn't be that sure. If he kidnaps Barry and Caitlin Allen, if you do anything as your superhero egos and that guy captures it on tape then your secret is pretty much out at that point. I don't think you really want that to happen"** Oliver said pretty sternly.

 **"No we don't. Felicity, mind giving Cisco a hand in seeing if the video we have might have been modified somehow? This guy can't just pop in and pop out of here. There has to be some sort of trick to him"** Barry asked the blonde. She agreed and sat down at the consoles starting to go over everything with Cisco.

 **"I know you said that you don't have anything on this guy. So here's an interesting question for you. Why is he wearing League armor?"** Caitlin pointed at the footage.

 **"That I do not know. This is the first time that I've seen him before up this close. He usually does terrorist attack, bomb threats and kidnappings. Usually in some part connected to me so he draws out the Green Arrow. But to what effect I do not know. It's almost like he's studying me"** Ollie looked at the two speedsters with dismay.

 **"I see. Then we need to keep an eye out for what happens. This is not someone we should discount. Anything else you can tell us about him?"** Barry chimed in

 **"Nothing at this time. I don't have that much information on him myself. All I know is that he has a beef with the Green Arrow and he will do anything to draw him out. From a simple bank robbery to mass murder"** the archer told them.

 **"Cisco was right. This is interesting, the guy has indeed managed to hack into the STAR Labs mainframe, but not from the outside, but from the inside. I was sure I made it hack proof from the exterior if you didn't have the right codes the connection wouldn't even be opened. I just didn't think that someone would actually get in so they could hack it from the internal network. Oh well. You learn something new every day I guess"** Felicity shook her head with a bit of annoyance.

 **"Can you restore the footage?"** Caitlin asked

 **"Yea. I'll have Cisco do that while I fix the security problems with the internal network. Sorry about that. I didn't think anyone would get in here, so I didn't take into account that the internal network could be se easily breached from the inside"** Felicity apologized.

 **"No sweat, we didn't even think that anyone could get in the building either. Not after the new security measures that Cisco and Bette put in practice"** Barry replied. Cisco looked at him crooked.

 **"Barry, he shouldn't have been able to get in. I have no idea how that happened even. The only way that I can imagine is having clearance from someone who had access to the lab and then hacking their way in by modifying access codes"** The engineer replied prompting both speedsters to move to another console and start typing.

 **"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"** Barry asked his wife.

 **"Yeah. Let's find out whose access was used that night if any"** the reply came. They found a trace after a few minutes. The access of a scientist in the Physics department had been used about the same time that they saw Prometheus kidnap Black Siren. There was a problem though. That particular person was on his honeymoon with his wife and had been so for the last two weeks. They weren't even anywhere in the country, they had gone to Europe. Which made the whole thing even more weird and annoying.

 **"Well that went nowhere fast. That is the only access that has been used that night"** Barry commented.

 **"Come here you two. Look at this"** Cisco called them over as he was finishing restoring the deleted footage. They could see clearly that the man had some sort of keycard in his hand when he entered the building. Not only that but he took the most direct route to the pipeline as well. This wasn't anyone that was a stranger to STAR. He had to have inside information from somewhere. The lab was intricate enough and the pipeline and the Cortex were on a level where nobody even had access except a few select people that were on the team.

 **"That doesn't make any sense. He knew straight where to go and who to take. Who is this guy?"** Caitlin made a grimace

 **"I don't know, but the fact that he's holding that access card tells us everything we need to know. Cisco and Bette's security system didn't fail. This guy had a front door key"** Barry explained and saw the engineer breathe a relieved sigh **"Don't worry, Cisco, even if it WAS your fault nothing would have happened. It's not like we're going to fire you or anything. Come on"**

 **"I know that, but I felt annoyed since I took it upon myself that nobody would just waltz in here anymore. Seeing this guy do just that, and not knowing how he did it, was very disturbing. I'm going to start adding retina and fingerprint access for the people to get inside, I hope you don't have anything against it. Not everywhere, just at the larger access points"** the engineer explained the reason for his sigh.

 **"Nobody is infallible Cisco. Don't worry, mistakes are the way we learn stuff. Everyone makes them. The biometric scans are actually a good idea. Put those in whenever you have the time as well"** Caitlin reassured him and the smile on his face reappeared.

 **"Guys, we have a problem. There was a bomb threat called in at the CCPD. I need to get over there as soon as possible"** Bette came running into the Cortex.

 **"I'll take you"** Caitlin offered and the two were out the door the next second

 **"So what did you say this guy's MO was Oliver?"** Barry lifted a brow at the archer.

 **"Bomb threats"** the man face palmed **"But how? We just arrived here a while back, it's impossible he set something up this soon"**

 **"Not impossible. You said you think he might have been studying you for months. What's to say he hasn't been planning this specifically for the next time when you come to Central City"** Barry voices his thoughts.

 **"Yeah. I guess that can be true. We need to go help them"** He tried to move and then he remembered that he didn't bring his costume with him.

 **"You stay here with Cisco and Felicity. Bette will call us if she thinks something was wrong"** Barry replied. After a bout half an hour Barry was pondering why Caitlin wasn't back, but almost the same moment he started wondering, he got a message

 ** _"I'm going to stay around Bette see if she needs any sort of help. We're at the scene so we need to see what's wrong. I don't like this Barry, somehow it seems way too easy. Maybe Oliver was right, these threats aren't made to actually scare us but to see what we can do"_** He heard Caitlin say in the back of his mind.

 ** _"I was about ask what happened since you`ve been gone a while. Call me if there is any sort of issue and be careful, Oliver did say this madman's MO was to plant bombs. So watch your back"_** he replied to her.

 ** _"I would be more comfortable if you were here to watch my back"_** the reply came

 **"I need to go. Caitlin thinks there might be something wrong"** Barry changed instantly into his suit prompting quizzical looks from Felicity. He pointed at his head and she understood. He flashed out of the building and checking his bracer for Caitlin's location he sped over there, finding Frost and Bette on top of a building.

 **"Is the bomb threat any good?"** Barry asked looking at Bette

 **"Yeah. It's genuine all right and this is not a regular bomb either. It's a small tactical nuclear device. I'm a bomb tech, not a nuclear bomb scientist"** Bette looked at the two shaking her head.

 **"Isn't it the same thing?"** Caitlin asked **"I mean the detonators at least should have the same pathing as in a normal bomb"**

 **"You would be right in saying that, Frost. But the problem is that these kinds of devices have safeguards that make them tamper proof. I don't know enough about this specific model in order to safely disarm it"** She shrugged.

 **"Look around the bomb. Is there anything that might detonate it if it's moved?"** Flash asked. Bette started frantically to search for triggers around the base of the bomb that she had in front.

 **"No, I don't see anything of the likes. Why?"** she asked.

 **"Let's get this out of here. We're both fast enough to run over water so, where should we dump it for minimum fallout?"** Caitlin interjected.

 **"We'll figure that out. How much time do we have?"** Barry asked. Bette pointed at the timer that was counting down. **"Oh. Didn't see the timer on the bomb. Silly me. Let's see if we can lift it"**. The two speedsters barely managed to lift the device and they flashed away.

 ** _"A nuclear bomb. A freaking nuclear bomb. What the hell is wrong with that madman? He has a grudge against one person and he uses this?"_** Caitlin was frustrated to no end.

 ** _"That's why he's mad, Cait. He doesn't really care about other people as long as he hurts the one that means something to him"_** The answer came and she realized that he was completely right.

 ** _"This should be far enough"_** they both agreed after running about 10 minutes over the water. They let it go to sink and after a few minutes while they were far away, there was a loud thud. The bomb had sunk far enough to not do damage except for a small tidal wave that didn't even reach land, the energy dying down before the two turned back to speak to Bette.

 **"We dropped it in the ocean. Crisis averted"** Flash smiled.

 **"Actually it's not. We were called at another site. I was on my way there"** she looked rather stressed.

 **"Come with us, well take you there"** Flash told her and she motioned to the bomb squad to move without her. They agreed and the next second the three were gone speeding toward what was yet another bomb threat.

 **"Cisco, bomb threats keep appearing. Can you figure out who is calling them in?"** Barry asked the engineer.

 **"Felicity is already on it. She'll tell you as soon as she has something"** Cisco replied. This bomb was different than the other one. IT wasn't nuclear, thank god, but it was very complicated and had a lot of secondary triggers. Bette showed them that no matter what she did, she could not defuse it safely. This was definitely the work of a bomb expert. This one had PH triggers, water triggers, a phosphorous trigger and at least 3 redundant circuits that Bette was able to point out. They could not move that one, it was larger than a locker and looked like a soda machine. Surprisingly enough it was placed at the ground level of the Central City mall, right near one of the support structures.

 **"We have only one shot at this. You two will have to disarm it since you are fast enough to kill all the triggers almost at the same time. I can show you what you need to do"** Bette looked at the two who nodded. It took about 10 minutes for her to explain what needed to be done.

 **"You don't have to be here. If this explodes you'll be hurt. We can run faster than the explosion at this point"** Barry told Bette.

 **"If this explodes then this whole building will come down. Unless you plan to take me a few miles away then it won't matter"** she replied.

 **"We have to try anyway. When we came here the time was at 15 minutes. So it's either in the next 3 minutes and a half or not at all"** Caitlin pointed at the timer.

 **"Ok. Frost you take the ones on the left. I'll do the ones on the right"** Barry replied and she nodded. For Bette only a second passed and she saw the timer die out. The display was dead. The two speedsters sat down and sighed heavily.

 **"Damn. That was different"** Barry commented

 **"I know, we almost lost it there for a microsecond"** Caitlin looked at him

 **"How were we supposed to know that the liquid trigger has a backup under the lower plate? We were lucky as hell you caught that. Nice work"** He moved closer to her a kissed her gently.

 **"Thank heavens that's over with"** Bette looked at the two and fell on her ass down in the gravel. **"This was made by a pro. I'm going to have the team take it to your lab at the CCPD and see if you can find anything off it"**

 **"Sure, but I doubt we will. We had to phase through a few things and we destroyed most of the triggers"** Barry explained.

 **"Flash, she's right. Even if we find a small clue, who knows it might lead us to something much more that we could think"** Caitlin reasoned.

 **"Oh I know that. I have no problem with taking it to the lab and us examining it, Frost. I just doubt well find anything. That's all"** the speedster clarified. They got up and got out of the building. The police saw Bette in full gear and the two speedsters walking toward them. She was sweating profusely.

 **"How does it look?"** one of the persons in the bomb squad asked.

 **"It's disarmed, you can go take it to the CCPD Crime Lab. Barry and Caitlin Allen should get a crack at it. See if they can find something"** Bette told him.

 **"Wait, what do the owners of STAR Labs have anything to do with the CCPD Lab?"** he asked surprised. He was obviously new, if he didn't know that much.

 **"They work as CSI's for the CCPD, out of the goodness of their hearts. Now go take that as gently as you can to the lab. Hopefully they will find something that will lead us to our bomber"** Bette said with an authoritative voice. As they said that, an explosion was heard and a lot of smoke started to come out of the location where the bomb was. The two flashed back to the area clearing it by producing wind and saw the locker sized bomb half melted and a drone flying away in the distance.

 **"Well, that's that. I don't think we can get anything out of this melted pile of goo"** Barry scoffed.

 **"Yeah. But this means the person was watching us. That drone attack came immediately after we flashed out with Bette"** Caitlin managed to speak, seriously annoyed that they lost their chance of finding anything.

 **"I'm pretty sure you`re right"** Barry commented as they flashed from the entrance of the building back to Bette **"Ms. San Souci, don't bother trying to get the bomb to the lab. There was a drone that struck it with some kind of corrosive agent. It's mush now"**

 **"Understood. Thank you for the help, Flash, Frost. A lot of people could have died if you weren't around today"** She smiled

 **"No problem. That's why we're here"** Caitlin smiled. The police officers were looking very interested at this exchange since they had no idea until now that one of their colleagues knew the two heroes so well that she could just sit and chat with them like nothing was happening.

 **"Barry, I found the source of the signal which was used to report all the bomb incidents. It's in an abandoned warehouse at the edge of town. I'm sending coordinates to your bracers now"** Felicity's voice came over the comm. Bette had her own so she heard everything.

 **"Have to go. Have a nice day everyone"** Barry told the police and they flashed out at their top speed running like bats out of hell to the warehouse. When they got it, there was nothing. At least they thought that it was nothing. In their dilated time scape they saw that the moment that the door closed behind them a circuit had been triggered and it started a series of explosions. They were moving slow enough for the two speedsters to see, but they were trapped inside. Or someone thought they would be trapped inside, because the two easily phased through a wall and stopped outside just in time to see the building explode and collapse in on itself.

 **"This was a trap, Felicity. Everything was rigged to blow from the moment we stepped through the door"** Caitlin told her through the comm.

 **"Are you both all right?"** the question came.

 **"Yes, we're fine. High energy explosive, low speed detonation. We could outrun something like that with our eyes closed"** Barry started to chuckle.

 **"Nothing to worry about. Except this was planned. Carefully orchestrated by someone and think I know why. It was a test. The person who did all this was trying to gauge our abilities. The first bomb was heavy. We had to be pretty strong to carry it. The second was about speed. This trap was pertaining to reflexes. How fast would be able to react to not be blown up"** Caitlin told them through the coms as the two flashed away. Somewhere at the end of the street a man was watching the two speedsters. He had seen the flashes of lightning go in and then come out through the wall. His face showed that he was not pleased with this outcome. It seemed that the speedsters would prove to be much more powerful adversaries than he imagined. His smile returned however. The plans that he had for Oliver Queen had not even begun to unfold.

* * *

AN : Thank you to Primus2021 , for pointing out a blatant plot hole related to Laurel being dead, which obviously she isn't.


	48. Mercury

Quite a long time had passed since Tina McGee had decided to Barry Allen's offer to join STAR labs instead of being main competitors. The understanding they had between them worked perfectly. It was exactly as it was initially planned. They could switch employees when they needed, for once in her life she didn't have to work as hard in getting government grants and projects knowing that STAR had a lot of contracts and Barry would probably pass something on to her if she said that they were running low on things to work on.

One thing she didn't really count on was meeting Henry Allen. She knew his story and knew that the man was nothing as portrayed in the papers, he was a good man who was falsely found guilty for a crime he didn't commit and imprisoned. The other thing she didn't count on was falling for the man, he got to know him very well from various parties that the Allen couple had invited her to over the past few months. He was nice and gentle, he had a nice demeanor and quite good skills as a doctor considering he had been in prison for the last 14 or so years.

Today, however, today she bumped into an issue that she did not expect. Mercury was a separate entity from STAR even if they decided to cooperate. While the business was good and they were more prosperous than ever, someone decided to try to undercut the shares that people owned in the lab and start to buy them. She took a look at who would do that but the buyers were anonymous. She decided to take a drive to STAR and talk to the two Allens. After about 30 minutes she walked into the Cortex finding the usual team tinkering around.

 **"Hello, Barry, Caitlin, Cisco"** she greeted.

 **"Good afternoon, Tina. How are you doing? Is anything the matter?"** Caitlin gave her a hug.

 **"Should I start calling you mom?"** Barry chuckled and Tina gave out a scoff.

 **"Nothing of the sort, you smartass. I have a problem. As you know Mercury Labs was initially owned completely by me. Before our ... arrangement, where we could get money and everything we needed by cooperating with STAR, there was a … bad period that had me sell almost half of the labs as shares so we could stay afloat"** She told them.

 **"Oh. You should have mentioned that. We could have bought them out and then you wouldn't have had any problems at all with problematic people that only understand profit and not progress"** Barry said quite seriously

 **"They never gave me trouble. They were good people who I know and who wanted to support the work we did. I was actually happy that I had found persons that were understanding of the work and didn't pressure us about their investments"** She told them

 **"What seems to be the issue then?"** Caitlin asked while offering her a chair.

 **"For a while now more and more of them have gone dark. I don't see them at board meetings and they don't return my calls. The problem is that a buyer that I do not recognize was undercutting them and buying stock in Mercury. Someone that I didn't know and whose identity on the market is withheld. I don't trust people that do such a thing so I thought you two could help with the problem. Maybe you know a broker that is proficient in finding out stuff like that"** She told them. You could see on her face that she was pretty worried about the future of the Lab that she herself had worked to rise off the ground to become, at its best time, one of the main competitors of STAR.

 **"Yes, we do have someone we can call. When has this started happening?"** Caitlin asked

 **"I don't know since when. They people started dropping out about a month ago, but I started to see they buying trend last week"** Tina told the speedsters. Barry took out his cell to call his broker and stepped out of the cortex leaving Tina to talk to Caitlin. The man knew his business, since he had managed to invest some of his money and almost triple it over the course of a year. After about 20 minutes he came back.

 **"Yea, you`re right. Someone was undercutting the market share to buy you out. I told him to start buying shares in Mercury as soon as they become available. We don't have to give whoever that is any sort of wiggle room"** Barry told her.

 **"So wait, you`re going to buy everything?"** Tina asked his surprised.

 **"Yes, is that a problem? We don't know who this guy is and what he wants to steer the labs into. I would rather we buy it and then you can come to us if there's an issue"** Caitlin reinforced Barry's point of view.

 **"Well yea, I would like that. Could you find out however who is trying to buy me out?"** Tina asked **"I still want to know"**

 **"That would be Felicity. Give me a minute"** Caitlin pulled out her phone and called the blonde woman **"Hey, can you do me a favor real quick if you`re near a computer. Yeah. Look into Mercury Labs for me. There should be an anonymous buyer that is trying to buy into the company. Yeah, can you hack his identity? Or at least something that would give us an idea who this person or company is? Ok, I'll wait"**

 **"Did you say, hack?"** Tina looked at them a bit weird.

 **"I did say hack. You asked to get information, Tina"** She smiled Tina decided not to ask more, but she did want to find out who that person was.

 **"Yeah, I'm still here. Really? Now that's interesting. Are you sure?"** Caitlin spoke on the phone. Tina was waiting for something. **"Ok. Thank you. Can you keep an eye on the transaction that account does? Yes, someone is trying to undercut Tina and we really need to know who"** Caitlin closed the call **"Felicity didn't manage to find anything, which is really strange, because they do require at least some sort of ID to do that. It seems like the account was scrubbed of personal data. I have her keeping an eye on that account if something comes up"**

 **"Thank you. With Barry buying the shares that continue to pop up, Mercury should be safe. The unknown person didn't really manage to buy more than 1% so that should work"** Tina smiled at Caitlin

 **"My broker has been instructed to start buying the shares aggressively. To everyone outside it will seem like a hostile takeover, but you know better. There is no other way to secure the ones that are outside. You don't mind me doing this, right?"** Barry asked.

 **"No. I don't. I'd rather you have the rest of the labs and I with my share than getting some unknown wrapped up in my business. Thank you for helping"** She smiled.

 **"No problem, it's good that you came to us. Worst case scenario we just buy everything and the only investors you'll have to deal with for the foreseeable future are the same people you deal today on a daily basis. Best case, we manage to scare the guy and you`re left with the investors you know. Either way, it's a win-win"** Caitlin smiled.

 **"Don't worry Tina, nobody is going to steal Mercury from you. Caitlin is going to see you out. Be safe and if this continues come back. My broker already is keeping an eye on everything"** Barry smiled to her.

 ** _"Why would you send me with her? Are you expecting something?"_** she asked while she was taking Tina out.

 ** _"Yes. This sadly seems like a bad plot of a corporate spying B movie. I'm betting my ass that someone will try to kill her as soon as she goes out of the lab"_** He replied quite sternly

 ** _"Wait. You`re expecting someone to kill her?"_** Caitlin said surprised

 ** _"Yes. To be clearer, be careful about stray bullets or even snipers. I suspect that will be the case"_** Barry told her

 ** _"Ah I see. If she dies while exiting STAR then someone can interpret that and smear our own name to manage to undercut even us when it comes to Mercury Labs. Basically by killing her in front of STAR they get a major drop in price and they can buy her shares for nothing. Also by smearing us they keep us from taking over, because we will be the ones that couldn't keep her safe"_** Caitlin realized

 ** _"Pretty much. But I don't know how we might get over everything. We might have to play the Tina is dead card?"_** Barry said.

 ** _"You mean let the world think that she is. That might work"_** Caitlin replied

 ** _"Do that then. If that will be the case just catch the bullet and clock her one so that she falls. We'll deal with that if it happens"_** as soon as they got out the front door Caitlin accelerated keeping in mind what Barry had told her. She managed to catch the bullet just in time and hit Tina hard enough for her to fall. She then stood over the body and faked a 911 call, dragging the body into the lab and as soon as the door closed flashed back to the Cortex. Tina woke up rather fast, Caitlin was careful to hit her just enough to knock her out but not more.

 **"What happened?"** she asked

 **"Someone just tried to kill you. You were lucky Barry sent me to walk you out. I was able to catch the bullet, but I had to hit you so you`d fall"** Caitlin told her rather absentmindedly

 **"So I would fall? What do you mean?"** Tina looked crooked at Caitlin

 **"It's simple. Someone tried to kill you so that your shares in Mercury would become available and he could probably buy you out. Even if you didn't die and were just injured, the prices would drop fast enough and settled to a new low. With you falling, even if Caitlin did catch the bullet, the person would be able to confirm the kill"** Barry replied to the physicist who was looking at him

 **"Now, all we have to do is wait and see who writes first about your presumed death and who gave them that story. Then we'll know who put the hit on you"** Caitlin added.

 **"Wait, you two want to kill me?"** she looked at them and gave them a chuckle.

 **"That would be the best course of action. Of course, if you think we should try something else then … by all means we're open to suggestions"** Barry added from the consoles.

 **"Why would they try that with Mercury? If they would want a takeover of something. STAR Labs would be the main target"** she got up from the bed

 **"Maybe. But trying to kill us would be something pretty hard to do. We are public figures and they do not know how much protection we have. Besides, people think that we have a tight relation with Flash and Frost. Which means, for anyone to take a hit on us, that uncertainty is something pretty big"** Caitlin told her.

 **"Then someone doesn't know the last modifications I made to my will. After we decided to cooperate and seeing as I don't have any sort of family or children, in the event of my death, everything I own will revert to you two. Including what I own of Mercury Labs. Which means they have no chance of buying more than what's already available"** Tina said nonchalantly. The news surprised the two speedsters that had no clue she made that modification. Not that they knew what Tina had in her will, but still that was something that they did not expect.

 **"Well we did not know that. Probably the person that is trying all of this didn't know it either. I'm still wondering why they are trying. The only reason that comes to mind is that they need some sort of base in Central City and Mercury was the smallest thing they could take over"** Barry was scratching the back of his head.

 **"Then there's no point in you playing dead"** Caitlin replied. **"If the shares come to us, then whatever anyone would be planning becomes moot. Which leaves us with a problem. How do we find out who?"**

 **"I don't know, Cait. The only logical course of action would be to use Tina as bait. See if there are any papers that come up with the fact that she was shot, make her put out a statement and wait for the killer to try again"** the speedster looked at his wife and at Tina who were both entrenched in thought.

 **"Wait. There is a chance that someone on the board or inside Mercury is helping this person do this because he doesn't want to see Mercury taken over by STAR Labs. If that's the case, we can do something else. If that doesn't work ... we can go with the bait plan"** Tina realized that there was another course of action.

 **"We're listening"** the two speedsters sat on a chair and were all ears.

 **"I can call for a board meeting, have you two join it and announce, internally, that the stock I have in Mercury has been sold to you for a hefty sum, because, I don't know, I want to retire or something. If the labs being bought by what the people believe to be their biggest competitor, I'm pretty sure that the people that have grudges will come out of the woodwork"** Tina reasoned.

 **"We can try that as well if you want. The problem is whichever way you look at it, you are painting a target on your back. I don't think this is a takeover of Mercury. Someone has a personal bone to pick with you and they are trying to do that by taking over what you love most and then killing you. Not in that particular order, but you understand where I'm going with this"** Barry replied.

 **"I have people who have grudges against me. Quite a lot I imagine, but they mostly are scientists, not people who would pick up a phone and order a hit"** Tina told them truthfully

 **"I don't know what to tell you, the thing is right now you need protection more than anything else. If you come out of this alive then the killer will know he has failed and will have to try again. So it's up to you Tina. What do you want to do?"** Caitlin inquired the aging physicist. Before she could answer, Barry's phone rang. It was Felicity, he put in on speaker.

 **"Did you find something?"** the speedster asked with a stern voice.

 **"I have, there was another purchase made today of a few shares in Mercury by the same profile that you had me track. I couldn't get the identity but I managed to track the money. You won't believe whose account it was"** Felicity replied.

 **"Well, don't keep us in suspense, out with it Felicity"** Caitlin chuckled.

 **"Malcolm Merlyn. But that's not all that is. There was a second purchase almost immediately after that. That time, the money came from an account that I have tracked before, which was used by Damien Darhk"** she replied.

 **"Isn't Thea's dad dead? I seem to remember Oliver say something to that effect? Darhk is definitely dead. Oliver killed him so … how does he have the accounts that he used to use"** Barry asked with a surprised face.

 **"I do not know. Both accounts are marked as active which means their owners should have been making transactions anywhere in the last 3 months. That's all I can tell you for now"** she replied with a worried voice.

 **"Thanks, Felicity. Keep us in the loop. Also talk to Oliver, see if he can find out if Malcolm Merlyn is still alive"** Barry told her and closed the line. **"If the league is after Tina then we have a big problem. Even if we kill the first one that comes alone there will be others. The league doesn't leave a debt open for long"**

 **"I don't think they are after her, but someone smart enough to use those accounts to cover his tracks. I'm sorry but this is sounding more and more like this isn't even someone we know. Those two were people that Oliver had to deal with not us"** Caitlin replied. The discussion was abruptly cut off by Cisco who had received a ping and was listening in to the police band.

 **"Guys, we have a problem. There has been a bomb threat called at Mercury Labs. Seems oddly familiar with the problems we've been having when Oliver was here"** the engineer told them. The two speedster had instantly changed into their suit prompting Tina to smile.

 **"We're on it. Tina, don't leave STAR, yet. We don't know who is after you for now and we don't want to take any chances with your life. Cisco, is Bette on the way?"** Barry asked his friend.

 **"Yes. She's almost at the scene. Take care of her, you two. Please"** Cisco looked at the two speedsters and they understood why he was asking.

 **"We'll make sure she comes out of this alive, be sure of that"** Barry smiled at his friend and the couple flashed out the door running at high speed to make it in time to Mercury. When they arrived the bomb squad wasn't even surprised. Bette was already in full gear heading toward the cabinet like bomb that had been placed at between two of the support structures that were keeping half of the Mercury Labs building up. Before Bette started to tinker with the bomb, the speedsters got everyone out and at a safe distance telling them to not approach. Then they returned to their friend.

 **"How does it look?"** Barry asked her and she made a grimace when opening the cabinet

 **"Take a look for yourselves"** She motioned while rubbing her forehead. She could feel a headache coming on. The bomb was very similar to the one that had too many triggers back on the top of the building. Except this one had enough explosives packed at the bottom of the enclosure to completely bring down the Mercury building and more than likely severely damage the structures that were around.

 **"Great. This again. Can you tell if it's the same pattern like the other one?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"Yes, it seems to be the exact same. It's hard to believe that someone is manufacturing these on a large scale. These bombs can only be defused by you two because you have the speed. To give me something like this to disarm is basically just a message that however much I can try, I can't do anything"** Bette looked at them and sighed.

 **"Which means, that they are made to bait us into disarming them. Frost, keep an eye out for drones. I'll do the same and let's neutralize this. I suspect we're being watched so that goes for you too Bette. Keep your eyes open"** the Flash told them.

The two got to work and disarmed the bomb making sure to not damage anything in the casing. They needed to examine it in detail, some clues to where it was manufactured had to be in the components. Out of the corner of her eye, Frost saw a black drone just hovering between the buildings a ways away.

 **"Flash, there's your drone. What can we do with it?"** She asked.

 **"It would be beneficial for us that we take it down mostly intact. It can offer us clues as well as that bomb over there"** The reply came. **"Can you turn it into a block of ice?"**

 **"Sure. But if it reactivates after, we have no idea what sort of weaponry it has, we could be putting the people in the precinct at risk"** She commented.

 **"Good point. Skewer it. Once it's down ill remove the power source so that doesn't happen"** Flash nodded. The two ran straight at the drone who wanted to get some altitude to get away from them, but that didn't happen. Frost threw two icicles precisely at the large blades that it sported damaging them, making the contraption start to fall to earth. Flash was fast enough to catch it and dismantle its power source, at which point they came and left it near the disarmed bomb.

 **"I'll take these to the NCPD Lab. Or I can talk to Singh and take it directly to STAR. Whichever works"** Bette smiled **"Thank you for the assist"**

 **"Take it to the lab. We'll be there as soon as we can"** the two left with the people and the cops cheering for their victory. They returned to STAR where they weren't surprised to find Tina arguing with Cisco about physics. The couple changed and just sat in the doorway smirking at the two.

 **"Give it up Cisco. You can't win at physics when Tina is involved, she's the best in the city at this time. You should just accept that you`re beat"** Barry chuckled. His voice interrupted the two who realized that the speedsters had come back

 **"Is everything all right?"** Tina asked looking at them

 **"Yes, but the bomb was the same time that we had when Oliver was here. The drone was there also. Someone was keeping an eye on us. There was enough explosive in that to tear down the Mercury Building. Someone wanted to make damn sure that if he couldn't buy you out, you wouldn't have a place to work"** Barry explained.

 **"This looks more and more like someone has a beef with you. Or against Mercury. Although the fact that this bomber guy is involved might mean that all this has a hidden meaning to it"** Caitlin concluded

 **"I don't know what's going on. Let's wait until you have a chance to examine the bomb. Then we'll decide what to do about Mercury. What do you want me to do?"** Tina asked quite frankly

 **"Stay here. Nobody knows what happened to your body. If the sniper that tried to shoot you saw me from dragging you inside then he doesn't know what happened to you. We'll be right back"** The two speedsters raced over to the NCPD lab where after a while Bette and the bomb squad managed to bring the locker and the drones.

They spent almost 4 hours analyzing the bomb and taking it apart piece by piece to see if there would be some sort of forgotten evidence anywhere. Sadly all they had was some names form the firms that made the components. That didn't really help because most of them were usual components that even STAR bought on a monthly basis. The drone however was a different story. It used specific components for the alloy in the wings and the rotor blades. The control processor was a surprise, it was only manufactured in two places. STAR West and Mercury Labs. It was an advanced type that was used in all the internal machines that the labs had since it had more processing power and speed.

The labs were now working on cutting the costs so that that particular type of chip could be released to the public for normal use. In order to get that the person must have been working at one of those two venues. Which made sense, if the person Oliver told them about was behind this then he probably had people in both places that were providing advanced technology. The speedsters put everything they managed to get out of it into evidence bags and returned to STAR.

 **"Here's the deal. The bomb didn't yield anything interesting. However the drone did. I'm actually happy that we decided to take that down and not blow it up"** Barry began

 **"Beside the alloy that it's made of containing rare materials, remember the XZ25 chip that we use now in most of the machines at STAR? The one we gave you to see if you can cut production costs on"** Caitlin replied.

 **"Yes. I know the chip. Why?"** Tina asked

 **"Simple. Because that drone had one in the middle as a control platform. There are only two places that produce those chips. STAR West and Mercury. They haven't been released to the public either which means that all we have are internals. We need to find out who leaked those chips"** Barry concluded. Caitlin once again picked up her phone and phoned Felicity.

 **"Well, twice in one day. This is a rare occasion"** Felicity chuckled.

 **"Sadly, it might be a big issue as well. Can you pull up production and inventory on the XZ25 chips that we have? I need numbers, how many were fabricated, how many were used, how many are in stock and if by any chance we lost some"** Caitlin told her.

 **"Let me run the query. Why? What happened?"** she asked.

 **"We had another bomb threat like the last time you were here. This time we managed to down the drone that was watching us and inside we found one of our chips. Go figure"** Barry spoke

 **"Wow. Ok. So there are only two places that make them. Ah there we go. There was a shipment of 50 chips that was stolen last month. Mercury just got their production line in order and they were sending us batches to stress test and see if the lowered cost would lower the quality of the chip"** Felicity said through the phone.

 **"I'll send you a picture with the serial number. Can you see if this is from that shipment?"** Barry got a picture and emailed it to the blonde

 **"Yes. That serial is from the batch we should have gotten from Mercury"** she confirmed

 **"Who pegged the shipment as stolen, Felicity?"** Tina asked pretty bluntly

 **"Hello. Tina. Well, let's see. A Benjamin Fields? Does that name sound familiar?"** Felicity asked pretty bluntly.

 **"Oh, it does. Benjamin Fields is a Board member. He has no right or authority to mark stuff as stolen. So what would he do that?"** the physicist looked at the two

 **"Maybe you should find out. I think your death had just been canceled. Should we go to Mercury and find out?"** Caitlin smiled. Tina nodded and the three flashed into her office. Ever since she found out who the two were she always left the window to her office open, just in case someone would need to come over in a hurry. The office was closed and nobody could see them flash in. Tina went to work and checked what happened. Fields had indeed marked that transport as stolen, but the GPS data from the truck that had been stolen had been mysteriously erased.

 **"Look at this. The GPS route is gone. It would make sense that the GPS would have been turned off at the moment of the hijacking. But there should be at least the trip till the hijack point, not a completely erased log. This was tampered with"** She told them.

 **"Can you get ahold of this Fields character?"** Caitlin asked looking at the scientist.

 **"I tried. He is the first board member that hasn't responded to the summons and my calls either. Come to think of it, if the date in this is accurate then he didn't show up for the board meeting the next day. Which as you might think is a bit strange"** She replied.

 **"So this is the most likely suspect. Is there anyone that might have had anything to do with that particular transport?"** Barry looked at Tina

 **"No, the rest just did their jobs. Everything seems to start from Fields"** She answered.

 **"I should talk to Captain Singh to see if he can put an APB on this guy. Although I don't think that might work, the APB only works if there is a reason tied into it"** Barry voiced his thoughts.

 **"Yeah. He can't help us although it never hurts to ask. However, we can take care of that another way. I'll have the mainframe from STAR and STAR West track the transactions from those accounts and from his credit cards"** Caitlin replied with a stern smile.

 **"I'm not even going to ask"** Tina looked at the two.

 **"We have some software that was created by Felicity. Our resident genius hacker. It can track anything from a simple payment from a credit card, to a chain of payments done through shell accounts until it reaches the end. It's not legal, of course. Because it involves actually getting the information through illegal means, but it has helped us in more than one occasion find metahumans and people that were dangerous"** Barry explained to her.

 **"I see. Well I hope you get a track on this person"** Caitlin didn't even manage to finish her sentence when the glass window cracked. She was close enough to put herself in front of the bullet and take the hit in the back. Barry changed and sped out the window in the direction the bullet came from. He caught up with the man breaking both his legs with a few well-placed hits.

 **"Hello, Assassin. Fancy meeting you here"** He grinned. The person in front of him was mortified. The demeanor Barry had was something akin to someone who was about to kill him for what he just tried.

 ** _"Are you all right?"_** Barry asked mentally

 ** _"Besides being shot and being in pain? Yeah. It didn't hit anything major except that it stings like nothing else"_** the reply came.

 ** _"Take Tina to STAR. I'll be there shortly. Can you get rid of the bullet? Or do I need to cut it out of you?"_** He asked with could only be heard as a worried tone.

 ** _"You'll need to take it out. Don't be late, the wound will close in a couple of minutes and you'll have to cut it open again"_** she replied. Barry felt rage and annoyance. He clocked the man in the chin making him pass out, grabbed the maimed assassin and took him straight to Singh's office. The captain didn't expect him to just pop in.

 **"Captain, this idiot tried to kill Tina McGee, but hit my wife in the back. Can you make sure he's locked up nice and tight? I need to get a bullet out of her back before the wounds close"** Barry said with worry in his voice.

 **"Go take care of her. But I do expect some explanation to what's happening"** David replied instantly. Flash nodded and sped out his window with maximum velocity back to STAR. Caitlin was waiting for him in the cortex.

 **"I'll tell Singh the story later. Take the blouse off and lie down. Sorry about the pain"** he took a scalpel and made the bullet hole larger and started to look for the bullet with a pair of forceps along the path of entry. It wasn't that bad, it hit the back shoulder bone and just cracked it a bit, but didn't go any further. She was wincing and grabbing at the railing.

 **"Can you not give her any sort of anesthetic?"** Tina looked at the way Caitlin's face changed because of the pain every time Barry would move the forceps

 **"It wouldn't work. Our metabolisms burn through it like it burns though alcohol. It would last maybe … 10 seconds if I hit her with a stupidly large dose. Me and her, we're used to it. I can't use them either. She can tell you the amount of operations she had to perform on me without any kind of pain suppressant probably number in the double digits"** Barry managed to get the bullet out and clamped the wound with the bio staples and bandaged it. **"There we go, Cait. All done"**

 **"Thank god it's over, that hurt"** Tina could see that her face was white and her lips were almost purple at how hard she winced while Barry was pulling the bullet out of her.

 **"Why did you jump in front of the bullet?"** Tina asked her pretty surprised.

 **"I thought I had enough time to use my ice armor. With that not even those types of bullets can harm me. I miscalculated, the moment the bullet hit me the ice that covered my skin didn't reach the desired hardness so it went straight through. My bad. Besides, we were there to protect you"** She smiled at the physicist.

 **"Thank you for not letting me get killed. Both times"** Tina looked at the auburn haired woman and gave her a big hug, being careful not to put any strain on her injury.

 **"I need to talk to Singh. He was pretty worried when I told him that guy shot you. I'll be right back. Say if you need anything. You know I'll hear you anyway"** Barry smiled and ran to the precinct.

 **"We have a problem"** Singh told him as soon as he entered **"The man had a cyanide capsule on him. He died in the lockup about 2 minutes after you brought him in. Is Caitlin all right?"**

 **"She is. I had to pull a bullet out of her back. She's now resting at the labs and Tina is with her. Someone tried to kill Tina this morning. Frost was there and managed to catch the bullet. We assume this was the same guy as the one I brought in that tried again now. The bomb that was brought here for us to analyze was a dud for evidence, but the drone had some STAR proprietary chips in it, that have not yet been released to the public. They were stolen while they were moving a few of them from Mercury to STAR West. We found someone that had a hand in that, he's our primary suspect at the moment"** Barry explained him as succinctly as he could. He was worried about how Cait was doing. He wanted to get back to the Labs as soon as possible.

 **"Tell me who he is, I'll put an APB out on him"** Singh didn't even flinch when he said that.

 **"David, don't you need a reason for an APB?"** Barry smiled, but being surprised at the man who offered his unconditional help.

 **"What? Attempted murder of Tina Mc Gee and Caitlin Allen? How's that for a reason"** he replied quite sternly.

 **"We don't know if he's the guy that hired the assassin. That might be a moot point"** Barry replied.

 **"It doesn't matter. Its reason enough. I'll get the APB out as soon as possible and let you know if we find something"** He said with conviction in his eyes.

 **"Thank you, his name is Benjamin Fields. Keep in touch"** Barry smiled at him. It was pretty clear that he wanted to help the two no matter what.

 ** _"Can you get something to eat and some coffee?"_** He heard a voice in his head.

 ** _"Of course. Be right there. Singh put an APB on Fields. He's going to call us if anything turns up"_** Barry replied while going for pizzas and drinks.

 ** _"He agreed? Wow, that's new"_** Caitlin replied.

 ** _"Actually I didn't even have to ask. He put an APB for attempted murder on you and Tina. That's a good of that as we can get. He wanted to help, I could see it in his eyes how frustrated he was that you got shot and that the assassin that I caught killed himself with a cyanide pill"_** Barry replied with his hands full of food flashing into the cortex.

 **"I'm glad that he wants to help. Hopefully then we find who this Fields character is and we can take it from there"** Caitlin suddenly answered making Tina look at her strangely **"Oh sorry, Tina we were having a discussion"** and she pointed at her head. The physicist understood immediately what it was about.

 **"Tina, are you comfortable of working from STAR for a while instead of going back to Mercury?"** Barry asked quite directly

 **"I … guess? But will have to go there at least a few times a month. I know most of the people there and I don't want to give them the impression that I'm not working"** she replied.

 **"Hopefully it won't take that long. Just until we catch whoever is trying to kill you, but you can always tell them that since we are collaborating, it would be a sign of good will that you`re working here"** Caitlin replied seeing where Barry was going with this.

 **"All right then. Give me a lab and I'll get to work"** She smiled brightly at the two speedsters **"Thank you again for keeping me alive"**

 **"No sweat. Let's go find you a place to call your own, at least for the time being"** The two speedsters smiled at her. Caitlin remained to eat and recover her energy as Barry and Tina roamed around the lab to find her a place to work.

As the two were roaming around the lab, Barry's eyes fell on an article that was in the national news. He never really cared about that, but this time the article was about someone he knew very well. **"Major Hal Jordan dies in experimental plane crash".** The speedster was sad, his wife could sense that coming off him even if she wasn't in the room. She was next to him in a couple of seconds.

 **"What's up with you, you seem to be sad about something"** She asked. He pointed at the news article **"Someone you know?"**

 **"Yes, you could say he was one of my best friends a while back. I met him while my father conducted some trials for the air force as a medic. Back when I was a child, before he was imprisoned. After my mother died, me and Hal kept talking via letters, later on before I went to CSI school we met again"** the speedster started

 **"You never mentioned him. What happened?"** She asked.

 **"What happens with good friends because of age. He enrolled and became a test pilot like his dad, I went to school. We lost touch, we were both doing what we wanted to do. I heard he became quite a staple in the Experimental Aircraft program based in Coast City. And then I saw this"** the speedster answered looking at the news story.

 **"Ah, now I understand where the sadness came from. You were close in the past and now you didn't even know that he died, you had to find it out from the papers"** Caitlin took his hand, trying to stifle the torrent of sadness he was feeling.

 **"It's not like I could have known, Coast City is a long way from here and since we lost touch, I had no reason to go there. As you might know I had other things to worry about. More important things than a friend at the time. However, you are right, that's why I'm feeling sad. I wish I would have gotten to at least say goodbye, but as it stands I think I even missed the funeral"** Barry said with a heavy heart, sighing.

 **"I don't think there is something more that you can do at this point. Can you at least find out where his gravestone is so we can go visit?"** She inquired

 **"No, I cannot. His father died in a plane accident just like he did. That is the only family of him I actually knew. I don't know if his mother is still alive, we never really discussed family after my own mother was killed and my dad was put into prison"** Barry sat down with her in his lap and looked at the white wall in front of them.

 **"Then all you can do is remember him the way he was when you met him and hope he is in a better place now. That is the only comfort that you can get"** She sighed

 **"Don't worry about me, it will pass. I just wanted to see him one last time and offer my respects. He died doing what he loved, what his father loved. That is something that has to be commended"** He replied. The two sat in the cortex for a while not saying anything, Caitlin just trying to be there to comfort her husband over the loss of someone who apparently Barry cared about very much, even if the two didn't manage to keep in touch. She wanted to ask more about what happened, but decided against it, since right now it would only bring memories that would further sadden him.


	49. Beginnings

Over the next few weeks Tina didn't have any sort of attack on her directly, but Mercury was still under attack on a financial level. Somehow the people that tried to buy her out had connections. The labs started to get less and less grants and even fewer contracts. Barry's broker managed to buy almost everything that he could, the speedster however told him to keep an eye on how the shares go up or down and how they become available and try to get all of them.

They spent a few days preparing for the Queens wedding which they attended. Felicity managed to hire the same planner that she did. She did apparently give them a discount on their plans, however Barry knew that Caitlin had paid for the difference just so that Felicity could have the wedding she always wanted and not get bankrupt. IT was a large event, seeing that Oliver was the mayor of Star City, all sorts of reporters, media and cops attended the wedding. This time Ray did not preside the wedding, for obvious reasons. Oliver still had a little beef to pick with him after he had started seeing Thea. However since the two were together, he had never see his sister more happy. That was something that he was extremely content with. He even made it sure that if Ray breaks her hearts he'll break his arms and legs. The tone in which he said it made Ray to think that he was serious and Barry knew that he was. Oliver cared a lot about Thea, the way he said it being one of the only ways that he could truly express his feelings. Ray however didn't care, he and Thea seemed to just click. The wedding ended, after which the newly married couple simply left for their honeymoon. Thea was annoyed because Ollie had left her with all the trouble that the Mayor's office had in Star City, but thankfully she could handle it.

One day however while the two were in the lab, they received a surprise visit from Jax and Professor Stein along with a person that they had seen before, but rarely talked to. Laurel's sister, Sara.

 **"Jax, Martin. What brings you out to these parts? Hello, Sara"** Barry smiled at the three that were now in the cortex.

 **"We need your help. If you knew or didn't know, we have been having our own adventure the past months. We have come across a time aberration that has to do with you two"** Stein told them rather worried.

 **"Time aberration? What do you mean?"** Caitlin asked surprised.

 **"It would be better if you come with us and let Sara explain. She seems to be a bit better at this whole Time Cop thing"** Jax told them. Sara nodded. Martin already knew that it was better to show them as well when they were explaining what happened. The two speedsters agreed, put on their suits and ran them both to where the Wave Rider was stationed. The ship was cloaked and out of the way. When they entered they were greeted by Ray. Sara invited them in and then explained about what they were doing and how did they get the ship and almost everything else in between.

 **"Right. A time ship. The Speed Force gets pissed at a speedster for mucking with time, but you guys doing it? Hey ... that's totally fine"** Barry almost face palmed.

 **"Leave that, Barry. Why did you actually call us?"** Caitlin was interested. Her question was directed at Sara who was now fiddling with one of the control consoles.

 **"We have been having problems with a friend of yours. Remember Eobard Thawne?"** Stein replied. He was part of Firestorm when they battled him the first time so he remembered everything quite well.

 **"Didn't Oliver kill Eobard?"** Barry looked at the professor quite weirdly

 **"Maybe that version, yes. What we do know is that somehow he got a message to future him. That person decided that since his death was to be anyway at the hands of the Green Arrow and that he would be stuck in the past. Took himself out of time. If he was the only problem, then maybe we could have handled it ourselves, but he is not. At this time we know Eobard has allies. At least two of them that we know about, Malcolm Merlyn and Damien Darhk"** Martin Stein told them rather abruptly.

 **"So, the people that were killed now are some sort of, uber bad guy team?"** Barry voiced his thoughts.

 **"Pretty much. They still have Eobard's initial time capsule which means they can move through time via portals kind of like the initial Reverse Flash wanted to open a portal to his home time. We have been tracking them and managed to foil most of their plots. That is because usually they muck something up, leave and let us to deal with fixing everything. The moment Eobard entered the equation, we were pretty much outmatched. That's why we need your help. Two speedsters versus Eobard should give us the upper hand"** Sara explained why the two were needed to be involved.

 **"Sure we'll help anyway we can. But I suspect you brought us in because we`re involved this time, not because you actually need help with them. You seem to have handled it fine until now"** Caitlin replied.

 **"Yes. The problem we have is that, without the other two knowing, Eobard has sent a metahuman into the past to kill you two. I don't think you have met him yet. His name, or the name that he holds to himself is Shade. He can walk through shadows, turn to a shadow and move in the shadows almost instantly"** Ray explained who and what they would be dealing with.

 **"Ok, but what I don't understand. If Eobard isn't with him, why couldn't you take care of this yourselves?"** Barry asked quite bluntly.

 **"That's the point. We don't know he isn't going to be there. You know how he has a knack of showing up whenever. You`re our backup. I would think that killing you is still the most important thing on his agenda"** Ray voiced.

 **"The thing is. He doesn't even have to kill Caitlin in the past. If he gets Barry then it's all over"** Steel told them

 **"Wouldn't I still be left to foil his plans?"** she asked quite surprised.

 **"No. you would not. The more you go to the past the more everything converges. In order for Frost to have been created, Barry would have to live through his timeline, then decided to come back and create you. So you two could arrive where you are now. That is a time aberration in itself, but the timeline has settled now and we can't do anything about it. So if Eobard manages to kill Barry as a child. Then you present no danger to him. The other Barry would not have jumped in time and you would never had become Frost"** Ray explained leaving the two speedsters very surprised **"Yes, we know about your older duplicate, he appeared as a time aberration for us as well"**

 **"We have to be careful though. While we have to protect Barry, we have to protect Caitlin as well. If Shade decides he is too hard to kill he might go after her. While that will not affect the Flash directly, because he will still exist, the outcome of that might be something catastrophic. Caitlin, you, Cisco, Joe, Iris and Henry have made the Flash who he is now. Removing anyone from existence can lead to some pretty bad repercussions. Who knows, we might be fighting him and Eobard now. We'd rather keep everything in place"** Sara made it quite clear that she was just as important as Barry was in keeping alive.

 **"All that we know is that both of you will be targets when you are young so we have to keep you safe, lock up or kill Shade and make sure Eobard doesn't interfere in the timeline, or if he did, fix whatever damage he might have done"** Martin added.

 **"All right. We're game. But we have nothing on us. Clothes, Money, Id's. Nothing of the sort"** Barry replied to the people while the Wave Rider was taking off.

 **"It's fine. We can fabricate anything from the year we are going to. We'll fashion you some clothes"** Steel commented

 **"Shadows are almost everywhere. How can we keep an eye on Barry and Caitlin at the same time?"** Martin asked

 **"We don't. Shade's mode of transportation produces some wave interference that the Wave Rider can track. Gideon, does that information we have on his molecular structure still apply? How recent is it?"** Steel asked.

 **"Very recent. It came with the last update that was ever broadcast from the others. Hello, Barry Allen. Caitlin Allen. Welcome aboard. Core management and administrative control functions enabled"** the AI had a very pleasant voice and looked exactly like the one Eobard was using.

 **"You have your own Gideon? That's cool"** Barry smiled at seeing the Ai.

 **"Gideon, what do you mean by Core management and administrative control functions enabled? Weren't they enabled before?"** Sara looked at the Ai with a curious look.

 **"The captain of this ship, which is you now, Sara Lance, has complete administrative control over the vessel and its systems. However, not over me. The only persons with that sort of access are the persons who created me. Barry and Caitlin Allen, Felicity Queen and Cisco Ramon. Only those people have complete administrative control over my AI interface"** the image responded pretty bluntly.

 **"Wait you two end up creating Gideon?"** Martin was a bit surprised.

 **"The Gideon in the Time Vault that our Eobard had told us the same. We thought it to be a ploy to get down our guard, but apparently that is true"** Barry said with a look of surprise on his face.

 **"Yes, only it seemed to be a half truth. That version of Gideon only said you created the original one, Barry. This one says otherwise. Which leads me to believe that that version of Gideon was lying by omission"** Caitlin replied.

 **"Well that's one more question mark cleared up. Come on lets go to the cockpit. We're going to jump and we all need to be strapped in"** Sara told them. Everyone took their places and the Wave Rider with all its passengers jumped back to 1998 AD.

 **"We're going to set down just outside of Central City and we should keep an eye on Barry. We haven't detected anything yet from Shade, so best we split up. Barry, you and Caitlin will go with Sara to keep an eye on young Barry. Caitlin, where are you right now?"** Steel asked.

 **"What's the exact date?"** she asked.

 **"15 September 1998"** the reply came.

 **"My father had just died which means me and my mother should be here, in Central City. After that happened she just wanted to leave the house for a while, so we moved here. I don't remember which school I attended, just that I was here for about a year or so before going back to Coast City"** She told them.

 **"We will have to find exactly where then. Gideon can help us with that. Ok. You three head over to the Allen house and keep an eye on him. We'll go do some research on Caitlin and her whereabouts and we'll go keep an eye on her. Being in the same city means that we don't have to spread out that much, since you two can be anywhere almost instantly. Words of advice though, don't use your powers until its paramount to do so. It would be a bit awkward if the people start seeing and writing about "the streak" 15 years before he's actually created"** Sara voiced her concerns

The two speedsters and Sara got themselves some appropriate clothes, keeping their rings on as they might have required their suits at one point and left to keep an eye on the Allen household. Caitlin was wearing her usual pencil skirt and heels with a blueish jacket over it. Barry had some sneakers and some jeans with a dark red shirt and a dark blue jacket. The others returned to the ship to dig up Caitlin's actual location.

 **"Must be weird coming back here huh?"** Sara asked Barry while they were walking to his house.

 **"That's an understatement. I know my mother is dead and to be honest my dad has another girlfriend now, which sounds even weirder when I say it"** The speedster smiled at her.

 **"Seeing her again was something you wanted. I know because I remember your face that time we were in the Speed Force and it came to us as your mother. She might be gone, but you will always miss her won't you?"** Caitlin smiled at her husband.

 **"Of course I will, Cait. She's my mother. Still, maybe Sara would be willing to give us a ride now and again so I can come see her more often. Even if the only thing I can do is watch from afar"** Barry sighed.

 **"As much as I would like to help you with that, you have to understand. Time travel is very volatile. We only do it because there are others that are trying to screw with the timeline, but every time we go back there is a chance that we can trigger some event that will destroy everything we know. It's a large responsibility to tell you the truth"** Sara told them quite seriously

 **"I see. Well, how about, if you`re ever in this era and in this timeline where my mother is still alive and you need help then you can call us"** Barry snickered.

 **"We can use the help actually now that Eobard is part of the bad guy brigade, We'll see how this works, if the time distortions aren't too bad then I'm going to consider it"** Sara replied looking at the two speedsters.

 **"So what are we supposed to do?"** Caitlin asked Sara

 **"I don't think Eobard or shade will attack anywhere where there are a lot of people or anywhere that's too bright, we can stay safe and just roam around until you get out of school. That doesn't mean we can't go check there for disturbances"** Sara told the two.

While they were walking through the street closing in on the school that Barry used to go to, Caitlin started to look around very confused. Her husband picked up on that very soon.

 **"Cait? What's with the weird looks? Is anything the matter?"** he asked

 **"I told you, I don't really remember much from my time in Central City, somehow this section or street seems really familiar. Or I might be having déjà vu. I'm not quite sure"** She replied quite confused.

 **"Time travel can have effect like that sometimes. Could be just that you came here in your own time and now you`re remembering the area. Best not to dwell over it, sometimes it can give you a proper headache if you try to think of all the implications and all the problems that might come from it"** Sara smiled. It took them another 30 minutes to reach the school where Barry went. They just hung around the outside for a while and saw that nothing was wrong, Sara wanted them to return.

 **"I suggest we stay a while longer and escort, or follow Barry while he goes home. I remember that I used to take some shortcuts that were not really that safe. If there's one where it's secluded and with shadows, then we might have a point of attack"** the speedster told them.

 **"You weren't always the quiet nerdy type, were you?"** Sara chuckled.

 **"I was, but I also loved adventure and exploring. I know this neighborhood even now by heart"** Barry replied with a smile. Since they had nothing else to do, the other team didn't really give them any leads or told them if they had found the younger version of Caitlin they decided to just go and get a coffee at a small corner store that was near where they were and stood by and waited.

 **"Does this time fixer job usually involve a lot of waiting around?"** Caitlin asked

 **"Yeah. It does. Most of the time we have to survey our surroundings pretty well. If we don't we can inadvertently provoke some pretty large time aberrations just by being at the wrong place at the wrong time in some major events. Recon is a very important part of what we do. But I had league of assassins training, which means the patience required is something that I have been taught"** Sara commented with a large grin playing with a small blade she had hidden in her suit.

 **"It does make sense if you think about it. If you go in blind you have a much larger chance to muck something up that if you have at least all the data you can gather"** Barry replied. After a few more hours of waiting around, they saw the younger version of himself starting his walk home. The three followed pretty closely and kept an eye on the boy. It came as a surprised that nearly as he got home a group of bullies started to chase him. He started to run prompting the trio to do the same. He was pretty fast for a kid his age, but not fast enough. Sara decided to scout ahead and left the speedster couple to keep an eye on him. The bullies managed to catchup and started to hit him rather hard while the child fell to the ground a few meters from his house. Caitlin wanted to intervene, but Barry stopped her.

 ** _"Remember. No intervention of any kind. Don't worry about me"_** he told her mentally

 ** _"I had no idea that you had such a rough childhood. I thought you were kidding when you said you always had problems with bullies"_** she replied.

 ** _"I was kind of outspoken, I didn't really want to take shit from anyone about the fact that I was a nerd and I loved it. I made fun of bullies and helped my friends. As you can see, that didn't really land me any favors when it came to them. I was in fights a lot of the time, as the scene which is unfolding in front of you clearly demonstrates"_** the speedster replied to his wife. The bullies were finished, younger Barry was on the ground wheezing and panting visibly in pain. He tried to stand up but apparently something was really hurting because he fell back on his ass in a second after trying. Barry thought he saw a trail of red lightning headed toward a girl that was about to go onto the street, the light had already turned red, but she was seemingly not paying attention. Barry quickly deposited her on the other side of the road. But by the way she was looking it wasn't the side that she had to be on. The red lightning quickly ran the other way before Barry had any time to react.

 ** _"Barry, what the hell are you doing? Didn't Sara specifically say we should save people in this timeline because we risk breaking everything?"_** Caitlin admonished him.

 ** _"Oh, right. Sorry. That was stupid of me wasn't it?"_** he replied rubbing the back of his head.

 ** _"You are one strange man, Barry Allen. You let yourself be beaten by bullies so you could protect the timeline, but if one girl is in peril you run to the rescue. Always the gentleman, aren't you"_** Caitlin smiled.

 ** _"Sorry. Let's keep this between ourselves. I don't want Sara to yell at me. I did however act because I saw a trail of red lightning, before that young girl stepped on the sidewalk. I thought It had something to do with Eobard"_** the speedster replied with an apologetic tone.

Barry's mistake seemed to have put something else in motion. The couple saw the girl that he just deposited on the wrong side of the road approach the boy and offered him a hand to get up. She wasn't very strong, but with a bit of help she managed to help him up and keep him straight. Henry had arrived home and saw the two, jumping out of the car to help his son. He looked at the boy and girl and smiled, Barry was visibly blushing. While he was helping his son, he looked up and his gaze stopped on the couple that was across the street watching. He looked straight at them with surprise, almost asking why they had not intervened when his son was beaten. Barry and Caitlin were shocked. They both remembered this exact moment, her helping him up from the sidewalk.

 ** _"I think we inadvertently provoked our own meeting"_** Caitlin told him while her face was still frozen in disbelief.

 ** _"I still remember this happening, just nothing around it. And I think you`re right, the fact that I saved that little girl, which I think is you even if we can't see her face by how she's walking, triggered our meeting"_** Barry looked at her with the same frozen face.

Before the couple managed to continue their discussion, Sara approached them as well as Ray, Jax and Martin Stein. They were surprised to see them here. Their main mission was to find out where Caitlin was and to keep her safe.

 **"Hey, Barry. Caitlin"** Ray greeted as they approached.

 **"Hey yourself. What are you two doing here? Weren't you supposed to keep an eye on Caitlin's younger self?"** Barry asked.

 **"Well, we are"** Ray motioned at the young girl that was holding younger Barry straight so that his dad could give him a once over. **"That's her over there".**

 **"Wait, what? Are you serious?"** Caitlin said with a fake surprise and then while Henry took over for the young girl she turned toward the group. She could see herself as she was after her father died. She remembered the pictures, how it was the first time she had cut her hair short, and the fact that she wore braces and had dorky glasses. **"Yeah. They're right. I had to see her face to make sure, but ... that is indeed me. Younger me at least"** shock could be seen on her face, but Barry knew that the shock didn't come from that girl being her, it was still there from the fact that he had inadvertently provoked their first meeting. He was just as surprised, he did remember this exact thing that was taking place before their eyes, but had no idea what had happened after.

 **"Why do you two look so surprised?"** Martin asked seeing their expressions

 **"Because we're beginning to understand why us being here eve as observers can screw with the timeline. She went to that side of the road because we were here. Maybe we look like criminals or something, or she simply didn't want to disturb us"** Barry lied a bit, he didn't want Sara to know what he did.

 **"My dad had died so for me the time that I spent in Central City is still a blur. I don't remember much of anything from back then"** Caitlin told them the truth. **"That part of my life was pretty painful and my mind chose to make it blurry, so I could deal with it. Nothing you could ask more than a 10 year old than to deal with a parent's death. I do however remember this exact moment. Which is quite peculiar, considering that I don't remember anything else"**

 **"This is a strange thing. Even if you don't remember what happened, maybe that's Time's way of fixing the fact that you changed something. If you would have not been here then the young version of Caitlin would have just not seen Barry and walked away. So in effect you being here means that you, from the future, are the reason you two met in the past. Talk about a game changer. Besides, Barry looks pretty smitten with younger Caitlin. Look at that red face, no wonder some people call you the scarlet speedster"** Sara made a joke at his expense, but he didn't seem to mind. He had very little precise recollection from this period of his life except his mother and this precise moment of him meeting her.

 **"Did you find out where she lives?"** Caitlin asked

 **"Yes, we did. See that blue house down the road?"** Jax told them

 **"Wait, are you serious?"** It was Barry's turn to be the surprised one. **"She lived in my neighborhood for a year as well. How come I just remember bits and pieces?"** He replied with a strange look on his face.

 **"Like Sara said. This must be Time's way of fixing this blunder. Even if you were just observing you seem to have somehow intervened in the natural order. Before this as Gideon told us you two virtually had no interaction with one another, even if you were living in the same neighborhood. Gideon, did anything change from the previous timeline?"** Ray interjected into their conversation.

 **"No, Dr. Palmer. The timeline shows that this will be their first and last contact. Dr. Allen's younger self will move away in 5 days, their families will have another contact while shopping but nothing to indicate that the timeline has been disrupted"** the AI replied though the comm. The group decided to move away, Henry Allen was looking their way quite intently, almost like studying them and Sara decided that it was a good idea to not give him something to think for the rest of his life.

On the other side of the road, Dr. Allen was giving his son a once over, he had multiple bruises and a few scraped that he got from hitting his face on the ground, but other than that he was ok. He saw the couple across the street that was seemingly watching his son pretty intently, but they could have been new people that just moved in, it was nothing unusual to see new couples in the neighborhood. He recognized them as being married because of the wedding bands they both wore. They did have additional rings on their hands but he didn't really pay attention to those. The moment another group of people joined the two he averted his sight as to not be seen as intrusive. He looked at the girl that helped his son.

 **"Thank you for helping my boy off the sidewalk. What's your name?"** he asked the little girl who was fidgeting with her school bag.

 **"Caitlin Snow. I don't like bullies"** she said very shortly. Henry could see how shy she was and her demeanor denoted that she was sad as well.

 **"Hi. I'm Barry Allen"** the boy extended a hand **"Thank you for helping me"** Caitlin looked at him and blushed but shook his hand nonetheless

 **"Do you need walking home? Should I take you somewhere?"** Henry Allen asked quite openly

 **"No. Thank you. I live just down the street. It only takes me 5 minutes to get home from here. Hope you get well soon, Barry"** She smiled and started to walk toward her home. Henry looked across the street and something struck him. The couple that was now talking with a few other people struck him as familiar. He shrugged it off and went inside to help his son.

The group was now in the park around a table talking. They didn't manage to find anything related to Shade or Eobard. Nobody had seen them and the sensors aboard the Wave Rider were not reporting anything related.

 **"I guess we wait then. How can we keep an eye on the two? It's not like we can enter their rooms at night if Shade wants to choke them to death"** Ray voiced his concerns.

 **"We will have to. With the risk of altering history, these two will disappear if their younger versions die. The only people fast enough to get in there and neutralize Shade are you two. Of course that will imply that your younger selves will see the lightning you produce, which might cause some temporal backlash"** Sara replied to the group. At the time Gideon started to speak in their coms

 **"We have a confirmed shade warp signature at these coordinates. The event is very close to Dr. Allen's younger self"** The two speedsters didn't even think about it that much and raced over. The child didn't see the shadow that was following her, Barry threw a lightning bolt into the black puddle that was sneaking its way across the ground and it turned back toward them. The two were gone in an instant to the roof of the building. They kept an eye on the shade who went straight to the nearest dark zone and melded with it effectively disappearing.

 **"Confirmed. Shade just tried to take out Caitlin. I stopped him with a lightning bolt but he disappeared"** Barry told the others through the comm.

 **"Gideon is tracking him. It looks like he's going to your house, Barry"** Sara replied

 **"Show me, put the data through to my suit display"** the display popped up and the information from Gideon was shown. The two speedsters managed to catch him before he entered the house both throwing lightning at him which destabilized his form and made him melt into the shadows again. **"Got him. Ray, is there any way to keep him from going into the houses?"**

 **"Not as far as I know. We could try an electromagnetic dampening field around the houses. The Wave Rider can produce it, but it will have to be stationed somewhere in the city very close to the houses themselves to be able to project that over both of the locations"** Ray told him through the com.

 **"Gideon, keep the Wave Rider cloaked and move it to an optimum location. Land if you can and start projecting the EM field over the houses. Hopefully that will keep Shade out of reach"** Sarah ordered the AI.

 **"Understood"** the reply came. Barry was on the top of the house just in front of his looking at Caitlin. His younger self and his mother were out on the street waiting to pass at a light. He thought that it was one of the many times she had taken him out with her shopping. A large truck was coming and the cars had green light, when Barry observed a trail of red lightning moving at high speeds toward the two persons. The two speedsters didn't lose any time, they both ran toward him, grabbed him as he was running and sped him out of town to a deserted field.

 **"Hello, Eobard. Fancy meeting you here"** Barry snickered.

 **"Flash? How are you here? How are there two of you?"** he asked with quite a big surprised look on his face.

 ** _"This one must be from before the other one came back and killed my mother. He doesn't even know who you are, Cait"_** Barry told his partner.

 ** _"More than likely, since Menace changed the timeline that means this Eobard is from a previous period. Which begs the question, how many times did the Reverse Flash actually wanted to come back in time and kill you?"_** Caitlin looked at Barry. While the two were talking, the Reverse Flash went straight to attack her with his signature vibrating hand move, except, to his surprise…she caught it with her own hand and his Vibrations instantly stopped.

 **"Really? Can't two people have a conversation with you around? Rude"** she grinned and from her palm ice started to envelop the attackers hand all the way to the elbow. Eobard instantly got away from her stopping a few meters afterwards. He was visibly trying to get the ice off his hand which was hurting him.

 **"Who are you? Why can you freeze me?"** he asked.

 **"She's my wife"** Barry smiled and looked at Eobard **"You can thank yourself from the future. He's the one that trained her to use her powers. You can actually say that you are the one that did this to yourself"**

 **"How is that possible, there was only one Flash in my time? Not two. And definitely not some witch that could control ice and could do this kind of damage to me. No matter. It will be more interesting trying to kill you"** he spitted out. He didn't even have time to finish, Barry sped at him so fast that when he tried to dodge, the punch that connected to his jaw had already made contact, the impact sending him rolling to the floor.

 **"Don't ever talk like that about my wife"** Barry hissed at him. Eobard was stunned. It was clear that this Flash was way faster than him and having a backup that was just as fast as him was no laughing matter. He was outmatched and he knew it. The Flash was moving at him at a high rate of speed trying to hit him again

 ** _"Don't kill him"_** Caitlin's voice resonated in his mind.

 ** _"Why not. At least if we get rid of him now he won't be any problem later"_** Barry replied.

 ** _"Barry, you fail to see the big picture because of your rage. If he is indeed a younger version of our Eobard, you killing him here means that he will not go back and kill your mother, not build the particle accelerator and never create our superhero personas"_** Caitlin reasoned. He changed direction instantly and he was back next to her as the Reverse Flash was still on the ground.

 ** _"I hate time travel"_** Barry told her and she could see how annoyed he was at the fact he could not just put Eobard out of his misery.

 **"We can travel through time, due to our speed. Because we are affected by the speed force, we can see alternate timelines, something that you are too slow to do"** Caitlin lied **"We can see where you try to modify our past or future and we will always be there. You cannot win. At every step the Speed Force will counter you"** She told him with a stern voice.

 **"We could kill you right now. You are so very slow. We choose not to because we can always come back and finish the job. GO back to where you came from and think about that. If you try this again, you will have to look behind you every step of the way, not knowing when we will pop up. Trust me, we will"** Barry told him sternly. Caitlin put two ice spears through his legs just to make sure that he got the point. Barry was surprised at his wife, he was already down and hitting him was no longer necessary.

 ** _"Why did you do that?"_** he asked.

 ** _"Simple. I know those won't kill him. But they will seriously cripple his speed for the next couple of hours just like it takes a lot for us to heal from that damage. This will allow us to catch Shade without worrying about him"_** She smiled. Barry was thoroughly impressed at her way of thinking. She did that because they needed to catch Shade.

 ** _"Look at you, Caitlin Allen, with that strategic thinking. I just though you wanted revenge on him for even thinking to kill your younger self"_** the speedster chuckled.

 ** _"Nothing of the sort. I want him out of the way. We still have that metahuman running around and he needs to be caught as soon as possible"_** She told her husband. They just left Eobard and ran back to the Wave rider trying as best they could to not run on public streets and the likes so that nobody would pick their lightning up and start writing about it.


	50. Shade

The group was in the Wave rider waiting for new developments about the movement of the metahuman they were tracking. When the two flashed in they were of course surprised. Their team did not have a speedster so them popping in and out was something that was similar to a jump scare for most of them. Then only ones that seemed unaffected were Ray and Jax and Stein, although startled they did seem to be used to the people that could do that.

 **"Didn't we say, no speeding in the past unless absolutely necessary?"** Sara looked at the two giving them the stink eye.

 **"We made sure that we didn't go on any public roads were people could see us or anything as for our speed we kind of needed it"** Caitlin told her with a stern voice.

 **"Why? What happened?"** Ray asked almost immediately.

 **"We met Eobard. He wanted to push me and my mother in front of a truck. We did manage to foil his attempt, but we left him at the edge of town. One frozen hand and two ice spears in his legs should keep him out of our hair while we take care of Shade"** Barry added.

 **"Why didn't you just kill him?"** Mick asked from the sidelines.

 **"Simple. We don't know when he's from, exactly. Sara told us something thought and if that's true this version is younger than our Eobard. If we kill him means older him will never try to kill Barry's mother which means neither me nor him will get powers. As much as we don't like to admit it, the Reverse Flash was paramount in building the Particle accelerator and creating the blast that turned us into Flash and Frost"** Caitlin explained.

 **"I see you two understand the consequences of some actions. I'm glad. If you'd have killed him you two would be safe in the Wave rider, but that would have been a complete screw up that we would have had to fix"** Sara smiled at the woman in front of her.

 **"As long as we have information to make an accurate assessment then we will take the damage into consideration. That is why Caitlin put two spikes in his legs. It will take him a while to recover which gives us time to hunt down Shade"** Barry added. **"Which reminds me, did you get anything else on him?"**

 **"Nothing at all. After your initial encounter with him and after we put up the EM field with the Wave Rider things have been quiet"** Ray responded

 **"This isn't really that good. We can't spend a few years here protecting these kids. Furthermore we can't really leave a metahuman in this time frame when the Particle Accelerator wasn't even constructed"** Stein replied with a bit of concern in his eyes.

 **"You`re right. But Gideon can't predict where he will hit. In order for him to be able to analyze a timeline then that timeline must be created. Which would mean we just leave and if something happens the timeline will change and Gideon will be able to give us a precise and Accurate reading of where the attack took place and we can come back and stop in"** Sara said with a dark look in her eyes.

 **"You know already, Sara, that if a timeline is disturbed, even if the initial event that created it is undone doesn't mean that it will turn back to the way it was"** Stein explained. Barry and Caitlin were very interested in what he had to say.

 **"Professor, can you elaborate on that? The other Barry mentioned something but he didn't really give us any sort of explanation of what happens. Maybe you can do that so we better understand the damage that we can create if we jump back by mistake?"** Barry asked him.

 **"Think of the timeline as a coffee cup. Something very hard at first glance but also very fragile. When another timeline is created triggered by a certain event, then the coffee cup breaks. Even if you undo the event that broke the cup in the first place, can you return it to its original form?"** Stein pressed a button that showed in the holographic matrix of the Wave Rider precisely what he was saying.

 **"You can probably patch it back together with some hot glue, but even if you return it as close to the original state, it will still have the cracks"** Barry responded after a bit.

 **"Precisely, my boy. Those cracks will still be there. That's why what Ms. Lance is proposing is very risky and dangerous. We don't know where the cracks would appear, imagine if one of those abnormalities would be somewhere in the original Barry's timeline. Frost would cease to exist. What if, one of them means that Eobard isn't stopped by your future self and he manages to kill you? Flash wouldn't exist at all, Caitlin Snow would probably be still in Coast City, or why not, in Starling, since the original Harrison Wells wanted to put STAR there, while his fiancée was still alive. A million other things could happen"** Martin replied.

 **"We get it. Playing with time is wrong, mmmkay?"** Caitlin replied with a South park accent that made the majority of the people in the control center laugh.

 **"Wrong and as Martin just demonstrated, extremely dangerous"** Ray chipped in.

 **"Then I guess we need a way to make him strike. But how do we do that, we would need bait and telling either one of the children at least part of what we know could severely alter the timeline"** Steel commented.

 **"Don't you guys have some sort of way of blocking memories till a certain age or erase them?"** Caitlin asked pretty bluntly.

 **"We do, but we've never really tested the technology. The only one that did was the previous captain, Captain Hunter. We don't know what side effects it could have"** Sara replied with a worried voice.

 **"Side effects are as follows, Sara Lance"** Gideon replied to her apparent inquiry **"Inability to access the memories that were erased or time coded at any other given time, pre frontal cortex collapse, brain damage and complete memory wipe to the point that the person has to re learn everything"**

 **"Well I guess that answers your question. Which means we can't involve the children. Maybe Henry Allen would be more open to this sort of thing, but that implies he will have to keep a secret as well."** Ray told them pretty bluntly.

 **"Even if he does help us. I don't think he will be very open to the fact that we want to use his kid as bait for a killer"** Mick added from the back.

 **"Probably not. So we're back to square one. How do we draw that guy out?"** Barry added looking at the people who considering there were so many geniuses in the room seem to be completely out of ideas.

 **"Do we know the shade's human identity?"** Caitlin suddenly had an idea.

 **"Yeah, but why would it help, the system you use in your Central City, the one that Felicity designed, there is nothing like that here. So even if we do have his human identity, we don't have the means to track him"** Ray answered.

 **"Maybe not, but … can your machine replicate Id's as well as clothes?"** Barry asked getting where Caitlin was going with her questions.

 **"It can replicate anything. But it cannot build validity to them. So you would have the badge, but if someone makes a simple call then they will find you out and you will be imprisoned. The only time that trick works is before the era where they had phones. Back then a badge was everything, now ... not so much"** Sara told them.

 **"Computers are just starting to be used now. Aren't nationwide Federal APBS still managed by them at this time?"** Barry asked.

 **"They should be. I see where you're going"** Steel smiled.

 **"Gideon, can you hack into the Federal Database and create an APB for the human identity of the shade?"** Caitlin asked the AI.

 **"Yes, Dr. Allen. I do need a direct connection to a computer that is actually networked to that database I'm afraid"** Gideon responded quite bluntly

 **"Oh right. This is not the age of Wi-Fi. Tell me where the nearest computer that has what you need is, Gideon"** Barry told the computer.

 **"The only one in the city that has that type of connection is the one in the CCPD Captains office"** The AI responded.

 **"How much time do you need to hack the system and make it look like the APB is coming from higher up and not leave any sort of evidence or traces that could get the captain in trouble?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"10 minutes. Dr. Allen"** the answer came.

 **"I'll go and put an access point in his computer tonight so you can add that. Hopefully after that time we can get at least a fix on our metahuman from the police scanners"** Barry replied.

They waited for the night to come at which point Barry sneaked into the Captains office and attached a sender receiver to the man's computer, giving the AI access to the rest of the federal network that controlled the sending and receiving of the All Points Bulletins that were put out whenever a dangerous criminal would be classified as a threat for the populace. The Shade's human identity was now on the top 10 most wanted list of the FBI. Something that would have been considered quite a feat at the time, but the time travelers didn't really have time to wait for a normal ping from a normal warrant so they raised his threat level. Now all they had to do was wait. Barry waited for the AI to finish, removed the device and flashed back to the Wave Rider which continued to project the EM fields over the two houses to keep the metahuman out.

 **"We have another problem. When we left we didn't get any sort of metahuman gear from the lab. If he can turn to shadows and we don't have metahuman cuffs to suppress his powers then we don't be able to detain him. But with the Wave Rider stuck here projecting the field to keep the kids safe, we can't go back"** Barry said with a bit of annoyance in his voice.

 **"Actually that's not true. The Wave rider has a smaller dropship that can be used for shorter time jumps. It can take you back to your time and when you get what you need recall to the ship. Mick can go with you, he knows how to pilot it better than any of us"** Sara told him.

 **"Ok. We should go, in case this guy shows up we should really have the gear"** Caitlin suggested

 **"Follow me then"** Mick got up and Jax came along as well. The four got into the shuttle and jumped back to the moment they left, but this time right in the back yard of their Vacation home. That suited them very well because they held a few devices there just in case Kara would need them. Since her Barry only had managed to manufacture a few, Caitlin thought it as a good idea to have them around, since Supergirl could cross over and help herself. Frost made that very clear. They got two pairs of cuffs and started back. Barry however was really interested about Mick.

 **"So, previous criminal turns time cop. How does that work? Also … weren't you partners with Lenny?"** he asked.

 **"He was here too. He sacrificed himself so we could get away from the time masters a way back. I spent a lot of time with those people after Lenny tried to betray me. They trained me, taught me how to fight properly, I suspect they might have altered my DNA as well, but I can't be sure of that. I was recruited like all the other people on the ship, by a person that is no longer with us. Captain Rip Hunter. His mission was to hunt Savage through the timeline and kill him, because he killed his wife and child"** Mick started an interesting tale.

 **"That didn't take long to disappear. You guys managed to kill him when he went after Kendra and Carter, after that ... we found out that he had been resurrected by the time masters, which were working with him for some reason or another. We had to kill him again and in the process go on an all-out war with the times masters which we won, but we lost Lenny in the process"** Jax told them

 **"Sounds like he died a hero. That doesn't really surprise me. Snart had his own brand of honor. Even if he was a thief, sometimes I wonder why. He actually came to us and offered us information last Christmas on the trickster and Weather Wizard, for the simple fact that those two wanted to kill us and he didn't see any gain in it"** Barry replied.

 **"While we had our run-ins with him, more notably he is probably at fault for my first transformation into Frost. We did respect that particular brand of honor he had"** Caitlin told the two that nodded.

 **"I don't want to say anything, but I actually miss his snide remarks"** Jax commented looking a bit sad. The shuttle returned back to the Wave Rider at the moment it left. The speedsters had gotten used to the fact that time wasn't linear anymore and they didn't mind it. They went back to the bridge like they never left.

 **"And we're back, I doubt there are any news from like 2 seconds ago"** Barry kind of asked

 **"Nothing. I think we should get some rest. Gideon will alert us if something happens"** Steel told them. They all agreed and went to sleep. They had something to eat that was prepared by Gideon which apparently it was something that would keep up a speedster's metabolism that was invented in the future. It looked about the same as the usual burnt rubber with a touch of asphalt bar that Cisco whipped up except this one actually tasted like chocolate. They both ate 4 apiece and their energy returned and their hungered was stifled.

 ** _"At least now we know the bars will get better"_** she smiled as the two got into a bed to rest.

 ** _"Thank god for future Cisco. Or whoever managed to make them taste better. They are a powerhouse for us, but the taste. Yeah … let's not talk about it. It's so bad it makes me want to hurl"_** Barry made a grimace. The two fell asleep in each other's embrace.

The next morning when they woke up they found out that the Wave Rider was missing a critical function. It didn't have coffee. So they put on some clothes and went to the nearest coffee shop and got some for everyone. They already knew that Stein and Ray liked to drink it, the other they had no idea.

 **"Good morning, Gideon"** Barry told the Ai **"Anything new since we went to sleep?"**

 **"Good morning, Barry Allen. Nobody tried to breach the EM fields that are in place around the two houses. I have detected however a time signature of something that should not be there"** The Ai replied politely

 **"Can you detect which type of ship or pod it is that makes that exact trail?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"Sadly I cannot. The transport was outgoing. Someone left this timeline, as such my scanners would be useless since the desired object is no longer here."** Gideon told her.

 **"Any idea of which time that ship went back to?"** Barry inquired.

 **"Yes. It went back to 2120."** The Ai replied after scanning the timeline they were in

 **"Must have been Eobard heading home after he got his ass handed to him yesterday. It was surprising seeing him so … slow. We were always on edge because our speedster was faster than us"** Caitlin replied. A few moments later just as the others were joining them smelling coffee a strange alarm blared on the bridge. Gideon was scanning the police bands and received a call from a set of police officers who had spotter Shade.

 **"I guess that's it for us. Let's go, Cait"** The speedster told his wife. She immediately changed in her suit and he did the same. They sped through the city avoiding major avenues of traffic or people that could see them, but when they got to the scene of the crime all they could find were two dead cops. The criminal responsible for it was nowhere to be found.

 **"Great, he's gone again. I swear this guy is more slippery than an eel in a barrel of water"** Barry said quite annoyed.

 **"Don't worry about it, Now that he killed two cops I'm pretty sure the police will be on his tail harder than we could ever could. You know that nobody in the police will stand for this"** Caitlin calmed him down with a smile.

 **"You`re right. We should stand by in case something else happens"** Barry sped away followed by his wife and returned to the ship where Sara and Ray were already running the trace program to find out where he had moved.

 **"We picked up the moment he warped away, but after that again nothing"** the atom told the two when they came back to the bridge.

 **"Maybe we should extend the search area. We thought he had a place to stay in the city. What if that's not the case and he is outside of our scan range?"** Caitlin replied to the people that were on the bridge at the time.

 **"We can extend the scan range, but the Wave Rider doesn't have enough energy to keep the fields going and extend the maximum range of the scan. It's either one or the other."** Steel replied pointing at the energy consumption.

 **"I'm still surprised that he hasn't tried anything in broad daylight, except that first time. Something unusual about that, I know that assassins prefer night time to strike, but he hasn't done that either"** Barry said with a bit of surprise in his voice.

 **"I know what we can do. You two will stand out like a sore thumb, so we'll watch the kids while they go to school and during the day and you can take down the fields and extend the search area. If you find anything, call us and we'll go take care of that guy once and for all"** Sara told them. The plan was sound, everyone nodded and they left the ship to keep an eye out on the kids while the two speedsters stood behind and started scanning for the signature of the metahuman outside of the city as well. It wasn't long before they actually got a ping. The two speedsters recognized the location almost instantly. It was at a farm, the same farm which Mardon tried to destroy with a hurricane and where Joe found out for the first time that they had received super powers.

 **"Guys, we got him. Did he try to get at the kids?"** Barry asked through the coms

 **"We didn't see anything. Everything's quiet over here"** Sara replied.

 **"Good, then he might have just gone out for food or something. He's at a farm outside of the city, that's where we received the ping. We're going over there, there's no time to lose. He might just pop out again"** Barry told them.

 **"You go ahead. We'll follow in the Wave Rider. If you can keep him busy I might have something that can stop him. The ship has high powered intensity lights that might force him to materialize"** Ray told them

 **"Go, well follow as soon as we can"** Sara replied and the two speedsters flashed out of the ship toward the farm. As they got there, much to their surprise, nothing had changed from the first time they were on the property. Everything looked brand new, like it was just constructed, but there seemed to be no one on the premises. That is until the two saw a figure inside the house and zipped toward it only for the figure to disappear and show up behind them, clocking Barry one in the face and throwing him to the ground. All the lights had been closed so now the Shade had more than enough darkness to pop up from wherever he wanted. Caitlin instantly ice up only to receive a hit in the back that sent her flying. She managed to create an ice wall and land on it stopping her. She went back down and started throwing ice spears at the metahuman. She soon realized that they were useless because he wasn't in his human form, he had turned into an actual shadow into the form of a human who was almost intangible.

 **"Guys are you all right? We keep seeing traces of warping all over the place. What's happening?"** Sara asked them through the coms.

 **"You`d better get here sooner rather than later. This guy's intangible, we can't do anything to him"** Caitlin told them as she threw two lightning bolts straight at the figure. They seemed to have some effect, but not much. Barry had started to run around him in the hopes that the wind might have an effect on him but that didn't seem to be the case. The shadow stepped through the tornado like it was nothing.

 **"The only things that seem to have any effect on him are the lightning bolts"** Barry yelled

 ** _"I'm going to try the fog. Stay out of it maybe that might help"_** Caitlin told her husband mentally and started to produce a cloud that enveloped most of the farm. Shade passed through it and it had a slight effect, Caitlin noticing that he was slightly slower than normal, but beside that, nothing. She waved the fog away just in time for the Wave Rider to show up overhead and started to project high intensity lights in a circle around the metahuman. They were working, he could only pass through the light in his solid state and when he tried, Barry hit him straight in the chest throwing him back in the circle, where a large projector was filling the space with white light.

Shade returned to his human for just enough for Caitlin to speed toward him and put him in the Meta cuffs. The moment the cuffs were activated, he fell to the ground motionless and barely breathing. The Wave Rider landed and the two speedsters took the metahuman into the holding cell for transport.

 **"That was a bit disconcerting. Nothing we had would affect him in the slightest. It was like fighting the darkness"** Barry commented as they went toward the bridge to prepare for the trip back.

 **"Glad the lights worked the. What do you plan on doing with him?"** Ray asked.

 **"We're going to put him in the pipeline with the rest of the metahumans that tried to kill us at one point or another"** Caitlin replied.

 **"All right. Take your seats. We're going back to 2016"** Sara smiled. The trip was short and Barry found himself blind for a few seconds, but his regeneration seemed to work just fine. The Wave Rider landed in the back yard of their vacation house cloaking as the engines turned off. The moment it did, Barry flashed to STAR and put Shade in the containment cell, returning at the landing site in less than a minute.

 **"Well this was different"** Barry smiled **"Never thought I's get to play Time cop in my life"**

 **"Thank you for the help. Taking care of Eobard that early in the mission was very nicely done"** Sara commended the two **"Also the timeline seems to not have been modified which means Congratulations for a job well done"**

 **"If you ever need help against Eobard in your travels you know where to find us"** Barry smiled as the others went back to the ship, Sara, Ray and Martin stayed a bit longer

 **"So, you two are rich now huh?"** Sara smiled at the couple

 **"Well you know, stuff does happen, and you weren't hat much around to be in the loop. What about you, Martin? Back at the wedding you said you had some Firestorm issues to take care of. I assuming being with them is what you were referring to?"** Caitlin smiled at the scientist.

 **"Yes, our little time adventure group"** He smiled.

 **"Ray, doesn't Thea miss you? I mean you do go around fighting people through time"** Barry smiled at him

 **"Barry, this is a time ship. I can be gone one second and back in the next. Usually that never happens, but Sara has been getting good at piloting, so I'm never gone for more than a couple of days. I miss her too you know"** Ray told the couple who grinned

 **"So you have finally found someone to call your own"** Caitlin replied.

 **"You could say that. We're still in the boyfriend, girlfriend state of the relationship. Figuring things out, but she does make me happy and I hope I make her happy"** The scientist grinned. Before he could continue they could hear an alarm in their comms and Jax's voice came through.

 **"These guys are at it again. We need to move"**

 **"I guess this is it then, Take care of yourselves and if we ever need you we'll just pop out of the time stream for a chat and a coffee"** Sara smiled at the two speedsters who nodded

 **"We will. You do the same. If you ever just want to drop by the vacation house, chill, catch some rays, you`re always welcome"** Barry smiled as the two ran back to the ship. The speedsters looked at the large metal mass that de cloaked and flew straight up starting to shimmer and then disappearing after a short while. They smiled at each other and raced back to the labs to make sure the containment cell would keep Shade in.

The next day after returning from their time adventure the couple decided to go back where Barry lived for nothing more than to see the place where they first met one more time. It was surprising for them to find out the reason they initially met was something that they did themselves, or more accurately of something Barry did. They walked down the street and stopped in the exact same place where they stood almost 18 years ago, looking at the house in front of them. The house which held so many good memories for him, but also so many bad ones. The surprise however was the fact that Henry Allen was there with Tina as well. The house was not on their usual route, seeing that it was pretty much away from anything that the two would have any sort of business with, but they were here, on the other side of the street. Henry looked at them and suddenly realized what was happening. They crossed the street and came to greet the two speedsters.

 **"I was wondering when you two will come back here"** Henry told them nonchalantly **"Time travel, huh?"**

 **"Yeah, time travel. Hello, dad"** Barry smiled

 **"Henry, what do you mean by time travel?"** Tina looked at him rather surprised. **"I know these two have jumped in time before, I just know what it has do with this particular place"**

 **"This is the where Barry Allen and Caitlin Snow met for the first time. At the time, Barry had been beaten by some bullies and a shy nerdy looking girl helped him stand up from the sidewalk where he fell. That was nothing strange in itself. Except the same people, now Barry and Caitlin Allen, were standing right across the street watching everything. This was almost 18 years ago and I was witness to that event"** Henry smiled remembering what he had seen that day.

 **"So you did see us and figure it out. We didn't remember the exact place or else we would have come here more often. It must have been a consequence so that Time did not fold in on itself. We only remembered everything when we went back to help some of our friends and we wound up in the same Era in which there this was the place where we first met. After we saw it happen"** Caitlin smiled brightly at the two.

 **"Yes, I did see you. And I did figure it out, but much later. It was after you married actually. Seeing the Flash and Frost rings on your hand and the wedding bands triggered a memory that had been sitting there for a long time. The fact that I have had seen you two before at a time where you weren't supposed to exist. I knew time travel was possible from what you have told me before, so ... I didn't think of it much. I do walk by this house from time to time, even though some of the worst memories I have are in here. But today, when I saw you across the street and I saw the rings I was sure that that day it was you two that I was watching"** Henry explained looking at the speedsters.

 **"It was good seeing mom again, dad. After all these years"** Barry told his father and Caitlin felt the happiness and also the sadness that came off him.

 **"You know what was really strange? I didn't even realize that the two children that were in front of me were the grownups that I initially thought were too lazy to help a kid off the sidewalk or to stop him from getting a beating. I really wanted to tell you a few nice words. But something stopped me, I can't even tell you at this point in time what that was. Just a feeling, I guess"** Henry told them.

 **"Dad, we went back but we wouldn't interfere with anything. Time travel is a risky business. We could have damaged much more than we went back to fix. Even the fact that we two met, is a direct result of Barry interfering"** Caitlin told him almost like an apology.

 **"What do you mean? Barry, what did you do?"** Tina asked him with a smile.

 **"There was a girl that was going cross the street at a red light. I saw some red lightning that I supposed was Eobard. There was a truck coming so ... I helped her cross. Only I put her on the wrong side. That's why Caitlin actually saw me on the ground that day. If I didn't mess up she would have gone on her way and that meeting had never happened"** Barry told the two which had large eyes realizing what that meant.

 **"So yeah. I suspect that we never would have met if it wasn't for us observing. Of course and Barry's interference. Seems like he's a hero and a gentleman doesn't matter if he can screw with the timeline so hard that time can implode on itself. We were lucky nothing happened"** Caitlin smiled at her husband

 **"Effect preceding cause. That is something that from what I know now I couldn't even begin to think that was possible. But there you are. By what you`re telling us that is exactly what happened"** Tina was surprised.

 **"There is something else. I didn't mention it until now because I thought it irrelevant, but my meddling might have changed much more than we think. One of the reasons, while not the main one, I stayed behind to take care of Caitlin when she was in a coma was that I was sure she had helped me before and I wanted to return the favor. I would have probably stayed either way, but remembering that day and remembering her name is, yet another reason that remained behind and took care of her"** Barry told the people that were around him.

 **"While I doubt you wouldn't have stayed either way, Barry since that is just how you are, that could have been the deciding factor. Unless you know, you already felt a connection between us"** Caitlin said quite amused.

 **"Hey, I did say at the wedding that the lightning struck me that day in the parking lot. I wasn't kidding. But still I thought it would be something to mention. I didn't think anything of it until now, but who knows, maybe my blunder could have had a worse effect on time. Now I know not to do anything and not to play the hero if and when we might go back. The implications are quite staggering"** the speedster replied looking at his wife.

 **"That's true. Imagine how it would be if younger me and older you meet and by some freak happening I get a crush on you. Who knows what might happen"** Caitlin gave him a grin.

 **"Time would fold in on itself and we would have to close another black hole somewhere. How about we not do that"** The speedster replied smiling.

 **"Come on you two. Coffee's on me"** Henry smiled.

 **"Tina, just out of curiosity. How are you out of STAR, didn't we agree that you'll stay put until we found out who is trying to kill you?"** Caitlin asked. She saw the doctor open her shirt and point underneath.

 **"I like spending time with Henry and I hate being cooped up in the lab. So I borrowed one of the prototype armors that Cisco was building and put it on. The power cell is attached at the back."** She smiled pointing to a small protrusion in the back of her blouse.

 **"At least you were being careful. Still, we know these guys shoot for the head so even if you two do go out, be really careful. I really wouldn't want you getting shot again"** Barry told time quite frankly

 **"I'll be careful. Don't worry."** She replied. The physicist was visibly touched by the care the two speedsters were exhibiting. It was strange for her, she had always been alone and much like Caitlin was. She worked hard to make the world a better place for everyone and in the process her social life suffered greatly. Now, she had Henry, she had Barry and Caitlin and a lot of other people that cared for her. That thought alone ushered the appearance of a large smile on her face as the four was slowly walking toward Jitters to get some coffee.


	51. Attack

Winter had arrived in Central City and the two speedsters were busy in the lab as always. Cisco had managed to make the modification to the armor fabric he had thought about earlier to work with almost of types of power. Mercury managed to make the power cells lighter and smaller, but the production costs were still very high, with one caveat. Tina managed to make them rechargeable from any sort of power source. The main problem with them was that if they had been struck with anything concussive or even a bullet, the way the containment field was designed meant that any damage would buckle it and the power cell itself could turn into a very powerful explosive device that by what Tina had calculated could easily take a city block off the map if not more. While not as dangerous as a nuke which would leave radiation all over the place, it was still a risk.

They still wanted to distribute them to the police and firefighting units, but for that it would mean that the cell would have to be on the inside of the fabric and hope that any sort of direct shock would not affect it. The engineer and our two speedsters started tests in the lab on their own so they could assess the damage if someone actually did that. The results were pretty satisfying. Even hitting the outer layer with a few bullets while the cell had power didn't result in an explosion. They did manage to drain out a cell which took at least 50 shots straight at it and after that happened one shot managed to crack the cell, but without power nothing happened. They were ready for use. Barry and Caitlin decided to go talk to Singh about it. They walked in as usual in the CCPD with people greeting them along the way.

 **"Good Morning, David"** Barry greeted as they went into his office and closed the door.

 **"Barry, Caitlin. Fancy meeting you here"** he smiled at the couple.

 **"We have managed to perfect something that will help the police force. It took a while but we have everything down now"** Caitlin smiled.

 **"So? Don't keep me in suspense, what is it?"** he asked with a surprised face. Barry took out a piece of fabric from a bag he had with him. At the end Singh could see that it had attached a power cell.

 **"Mind if I borrow your gun? Also you might want to tell the others that there will be shots fired so they don't panic"** Caitlin replied and Singh went out and told the detectives just that. Barry put the fabric on the sofa and his wife got the gun.

 **"This is a new type of body armor we developed at STAR"** She spoke and emptied the clip in the sofa above the piece of fabric. Singh expected her to kill the piece of furniture only to be pleasantly surprised when all the bullets that were fired were on the piece of fabric and the sofa had no damage whatsoever. She took off the power cell and the bullets and gave the material to Singh to look at. He was visibly impressed, the fabric had no tears, no holes and it was soft to the touch and quite lightweight **"As you can see the material is light but the stopping power is enough to protect any police officer of injuries as long as it's worn under the clothes"**

 **"How does this work, I assume the material itself doesn't have all those properties."** Singh asked.

 **"No, that is a Nano fiber material that has as part of the design nanites that were developed by Ray Palmer. In its unpowered state it's just a piece of cloth. With power attached however, the nanites are active and they harden the material locally to be able to withstand bullets. Of course that takes power, but the cells that we make are now rechargeable"** Barry told the captain.

 **"So this material as how it is can withstand the punch of those bullets. That is simply amazing. It's so light officers won't even know they have it on. Does it do anything else?"** David inquired

 **"Yes, it can absorb heat and redirect concussive damage instead of absorbing it. Meaning the body sill still get a shock, but it will be distributed over the whole armor instead of just one point which could mean internal damage, but redirection will only happen when the armor is low on power. Because it would be better to use less power for redirection than more for absorption"** Caitlin replied.

 **"We plan to make these available for you and the fire department. Of course you will get the armor variant, more like the body armor you have now. We will have to talk to the fire department, they might require full body suits to protect them entirely from the flames"** Barry added.

 **"I see. So body armor for the police and fireproof suits for the fire fighters. This is really amazing. But I assume they cost a lot as well. Cutting edge technology usually does"** Singh told them quite bluntly

 **"They do, but for now the first batch for everyone in the precinct will be at the normal price of a body armor. We can take the hit once and I hope that the research is sound enough that you might need to replace an unit or two every few years, but not more"** Caitlin responded smiling.

 **"I'll talk to my superiors and see if we can't get anything going over there then. You should talk to the firefighters department as well. This seems like something really useful especially since it's not bulky and can be worn under any sort of clothing. Did you two ever think of making bulletproof clothing out of this type of fabric?"** Singh smiled at them

 **"David, you know how fashion is. This material is practical not beautiful to make clothes out of. We might consider it but I doubt that will come to pass. Let us know what you decide or what the superiors decide. You know where to find us"** Barry retorted.

 **"Thank you. Keep in touch"** the captain waved goodbye as they were going out of his office. They went up to the lab to check if there was any sort of evidence to process for anyone, but they seemed to be in luck. Nothing new had arrived which meant they could go back to STAR. Cisco was in the cortex with Bette looking over the data that they received from the usual security reports and research that was going on in the lab.

 **"How did Singh take it?"** the engineer smiled when the two popped back in

 **"He's excited, most of the officers don't wear body armor all the time because it's heavy and bulky. Now it won't be. We still have to get the production costs down, since its rather expensive, but we suspect he'll like the idea"** Barry smiled. As he finished his sentence, his phone rang. It was Felicity

 **"You guys, we might have a large problem on our hands"** she told them

 **"What happened?"** Caitlin voiced as the connected the phone to the internal system so they could all speak and hear what she was saying.

 **"Prometheus has shown his face. Ollie was out last night in the city. The guy had kidnapped a police officer here. You were right, by what he told me he's the same man which the same description that broke into STAR and freed Black Siren."** She replied.

 **"Great. But why call us? Unless you need help with handling him?"** Barry inquired

 **"Yeah. We managed to take down one of his drones. We could use Cisco's engineering skills. Also we don't know where he's hiding and how he might strike next. He's really into it for the revenge and he might just be a real danger to this city"** Felicity voiced her concerns.

 **"All right. We'll be there as fast as we can"** Barry closed the line and they two switched into their suits. **"Cisco, Bette, we're taking a trip"** The two knew what was coming. They closed their eyes as the speedsters grabbed them raced all the way to Star City coming to a stop in the Arrow Cave, where Felicity was running a trace on some of Prometheus' latest activities. Surprising everyone in the Cave, Caitlin ran straight to the bathroom and puked then came back with a strange look on her face.

 **"You ok?"** Barry asked while Cisco was going over the semi intact drone that the archer had captured earlier.

 **"I think something I ate didn't agree with me. I should be fine"** she smiled.

 **"That never happened before. Be careful what you eat, Cait"** Barry chuckled looking at his wife.

 **"So as I was saying. The last time this guy wanted something we had bombs all over the city. Now, he abducted a police officer that we were friends with just to spite us. I don't know what his endgame is, but I don't think it's anything good"** Felicity replied quite annoyed. Oliver came in and greeted the two. All of a sudden all of the video feeds that were displayed from various TV stations around the city all went black and started playing a message from an unknown source. They all could recognize the face mask

 **"Hello, Star City. I have a message for you and for the Green Arrow. Meet me tonight at 10 pm at the place we have had out first encounter. Be there or the city will be in serious trouble"** The man stepped away and they could see what could only be described as an army of drones and some other machinery behind him **"What will it be, the life of the Green Arrow? Or the lives of everyone in Star City. I leave you to decide"** As the figure walked off they could see all the drones start to fly and the machinery start to move. They video was turned off and the televisions started to comment on the message.

 **"Well this is wonderful. Instead of calling me out personally he decided to panic the whole city to force me to come out"** Oliver said with a disgusted face.

 **"Did you see how many of those things he has? I don't think even you two with your speed can handle them all"** Felicity said quite scared of what was going to happen

 **"I know. That's why we're calling in the heavy hitters, or more precisely said, the heaviest hitter"** Barry went to a console and connected to the Cortex where he dialed in Kara and put her through to their comms. It didn't take long for her to answer

 **"Hey you two. How's everything?"** the response came with her usual sweet cheery voice.

 **"We would say well, except not so much. We might need your help and Barry's to take care of something over here. Do you have some time to cross over?"** Caitlin asked her.

 **"We can be there after we're done with work. In about an hour"** She responded.

 **"We're in Star City. The man we're going after seems to have a beef with Oliver. You`ve already been here so when you two cross over come straight here"** Barry commented

 **"All right, we're on the way"** Older Barry commented and the line closed.

 **"There. Now we have backup"** Caitlin commented.

 **"So what do we actually do about this madman? We have no idea who he is, nor why he has a beef with you. We don't know what he can do except that he can apparently steal stuff from STAR and make a lot of machinery"** Felicity spoke.

 **"I don't know if the bombs we handled that time in Central City were designed by him or not but he seems to be very proficient at that as well. These two can tell you that as a bomb tech I didn't have any chance to defuse them without super speed"** Bette added.

 **"Also he seems to be behind the financial attack that was waged a while back against Mercury Labs. The one that you managed to backtrack the money those accounts of two people that were supposed to be dead"** Caitlin replied.

 **"Guys, these drones are more advanced than the one you two managed to capture. They have missiles and high caliber weaponry. Also the power source looks eerily familiar to the Power cell that STAR West has the patent to. This guy is either stealing tech from our systems or someone is giving it to him"** Cisco said rather annoyed at his findings.

 **"We discovered that someone from Mercury, a Benjamin Fields, might be behind the theft of the chips that are in these drones. Now after what Cisco told us he might be behind the power cell issues as well. We should really find that guy and see what else he stole"** Barry voiced his concerns.

Felicity and Cisco continued to study the machine that was now in pieces on the slab in the Arrow Cave. Bette started to look around for more clues, she went out of the cave and started to go over the security details of STAR West. Barry asked her to see if she could find some sort of pattern in the things that kept disappearing. Much to their surprise, Thea joined them.

 **"The Mayor's office is going off the rails after that announcement. They want the Mayor to give a statement, so urge the people not to panic. Ollie you need to come back to City Hall with me right away"** she told the archer. **"Barry, Caitlin. I assume you came to help with this crazy guy?"** she asked.

 **"Yes. And we're bringing backup. Kara and Barry are on their way from their earth. They should be here soon"** Caitlin replied.

 **"That's awesome. I suspect we should need all the help we can get. Diggle and Lyla are out of town spending the holidays with their kid somewhere undisclosed so that leaves the people here"** She replied.

 **"So, how's life without Ray?"** Barry chuckled. **"We know he just loves playing Time Cop"**

 **"Ah so you've met their rag tag team of time warriors. What can I say, I miss him, but protecting time is a pretty big deal. I would have gone with them, if a certain brother of mine wouldn't have me do 90% of the work he has to do as mayor so he could be the Green Arrow on the side. Come on, Ollie we need to take care of this and then we can return"** She replied rather sternly. Oliver didn't comment and the two walked out of the Arrow Cave.

 **"Being Mayor and the Green Arrow must suck"** Cisco commented

 **"It does. Back when we had our house warming party he told us that he barely gets enough sleep these days. I hope that you`re making sure he sleeps, Felicity"** Barry looked at the blonde.

 **"I try, but there's not much I can do when he's away most of the time. Day with Mayor stuff, night with Arrow stuff. I knew this is how it was going to be when I married him. I don't mind and whenever I can I make sure he sleeps"** She grinned

 **"I'm sure that's the first thing in your mind, Felicity"** Caitlin grinned. A familiar whoosh was heard and Kara and older Barry were in the Cave as well. After the usual round of greetings Older Barry asked quite seriously

 **"What should we expect from this guy?"**

 **"He seems to have a beef with Oliver, He is an expert at building bombs and apparently mechanical things as well. Drones and other things. He told Oliver to be at some place at 10 tonight or the city pays the price"** Felicity said in a short sentence.

 **"Drones. I swear some things never change doesn't matter which Earth you`re from"** Kara almost face palmed.

 **"What do you mean?"** Young Barry asked rather surprised.

 **"Someone tried to kill a friend of ours with drones too, there were a lot of them we were in luck that my cousin and J`onn were around or else a lot of people would have been hurt"** Kara replied with a bit of annoyance.

 **"I guess that is the new weapon of criminals that don't want to reveal themselves."** Older Barry commented

While Oliver was at City hall to give the address to the city, the four decided to get something to eat and some coffees for everyone to keep their energy up. To their surprise Older Barry was gone for a few minutes to go get pot stickers for Kara.

 **"Does he always do that?"** Younger Barry asked surprised.

 **"Yes, although I don't know if the same thing exists in your universe. He might be really annoyed if he runs all the way to China and doesn't find my favorite food"** Kara smiled.

 **"Just how fast is he anyway? When we monitored him, Cisco said something about being about three times if not more than what we are now"** Younger Barry interjected. Older Barry was back with pot stickers for Kara and a more pizzas.

 **"He can run around the world in 3 minutes and a half is that's some indication"** Kara smiled and happily started to munch on her food. The two speedsters were shocked.

 **"What? I've had enough time to train and hone my speed. I'm going for going around the world in one minute"** older Barry smiled

 **"Never thought I would feel this slow while actually being the fastest man in this universe"** younger Barry said with a bit of sneer. Caitlin felt something that she could only classify as envy, coming off him.

 **"We already knew that we have to continue training and improve our speed and that is what we'll do"** She smiled at him and took his hand into his. After they finished eating Oliver and Thea arrived back from City Hall. The archer had already made his address to the people urging for calm and telling them that Green Arrow will be present at the requested meeting so they have nothing to fear about. However that didn't seem to be the case. Cisco was using the STAR satellite to keep an eye on the city. Sooner rather than later they started to see drones that started to infiltrate the city.

 **"I think the meeting is a ruse. This guy has something else in mind"** Kara replied looking at the way the drones were positioned.

 **"Why do you say that?"** young Barry asked.

 **"Look at their trajectory and the way they are moving. It might appear random but it's not"** She commented and older Barry saw what she was talking about.

 **"You`re right, it seems that the drones are heading straight for STAR West. But why would he try to attack here?"**

 **"We're the ones that manufacture the chips and the power cells that are in those drones"** Caitlin pointed at the one that was fragmented on the slab **"I'm guessing he wants to get more components for more machines and while the Green Arrow is busy not getting killed he can plunder the STAR West building for all the components he needs"**

 **"He will have a nasty surprise them. Kara, you and your Barry keep an eye on STAR West. My husband and I will go make sure that Oliver is safe at his meeting. I wouldn't be surprised if he tried to kill two birds with one stone. Get all he needs for more drones and killing the Green Arrow as well"** Caitlin told them.

 **"Do you expect heavy resistance here?"** she asked quite bluntly.

 **"Yes. In the video that he sent there were some sort of machines that looked more like assault vehicles than anything else. If Caitlin's hunch is right then they will be used to break the perimeter of the building. The lower floors can be reinforced if necessary and if he had any sort of access the he knows that"** young Barry replied to the group.

 **"Felicity, I suggest you start the evacuation procedure and get all the people out of the building then deploy the armor panels around the first three floors"** Caitlin told the blonde. After the bundle of incidents that had happened and involved the STAR West building with different people that tried to break in, Felicity had armor panels installed at the first couple of floors between the support columns almost like secondary windows. They could be deployed and closed effectively creating a lockdown and a secondary support structure for the building itself in case of explosions or other kind of attacks. Barry and Caitlin thought that was a very good idea so they had the same installed at STAR in the offices wherever there were windows that were on the outside and at the entrance. In effect STAR Labs could become a fortress at the push of a button.

 **"Evacuation is already finished. I thought we might have some surprises coming here so I sent the people home 30 minutes ago. The building above us is already empty. Deploying armor panels"** she replied and pushed a button. Both archers suited up and were gone. It was nearly time for the meet up. Oliver told them that the first time he had met the madman was in an abandoned bunker that was just outside the city limits and was surrounded by fences and the likes. He didn't think he had to go in to meet the person, but nobody actually thought he would even be there. This was a trap and it smelled like one from a mile away. Kara and her Barry put on their masks and exited the cave, flying on top of a building that was across the road from the lab. It was shorter but it offered them good vantage points to see the drones coming.

As soon as they got to the meeting point they got attacked. Which was nothing surprising considering the circumstances. There were however a lot of drones which kept continually firing at Oliver trying to kill him. Thea was on point, while the emerald archer tried to dodge the bullets sometimes being shielded by Caitlin with her ice walls or just being relocated by Barry with his speed, she was taking down the drones with expert hits to their propulsion system.

 **"I'm out of explosive arrows"** She told the three in the com. In less than a second Caitlin was near her with a bunch more who had just taken from Oliver's quiver **"Thanks"** she smiled at Frost.

 **"No problem. Oliver is occupied with keeping his own life"** Frost replied grinning and sped away. The drones were solely focused on Ollie, it was like nobody was actually piloting them. They just had an automated firing program that only targeted him. That enabled our speedsters to make quick work of them. Caitlin was having a blast playing hit the target with her ice spears. At one point she just got a bit annoyed that there were so many and stepped aside charging a large freezing rain attack. Barry saw the immense number of icicles that were forming around her.

 **"Oliver, be prepared to duck. Speedy you should look for cover as well. Frost is going to make it rain"** he chuckled as he said that prompting a response from Caitlin in his mind

 ** _"Make it rain? Well I guess I could since we have the money, but really? You know you just sounded like Oliver is a stripper right now"_** she chuckled

 ** _"Considering how Felicity looks at him, he might as well be"_** the Flash replied while keeping an eye on the charge up of her attack.

 ** _"I'm done. Get him out of there"_** Caitlin told her husband who got the archer and brought him and Thea a ways back. Large icicles started to rain down from the sky in a circular shape around the area that they managed to get out of just in time. Frost was near them a moment later while the freezing rain was still going. They could see the drones that tried to move toward them being struck down by the hail of icicles that she had created. The archer had seen this move before, but Thea was shocked with surprise. She was even more shocked when Barry drew up a lightning bolt from his fist and hit Frost with it.

 **"Um… is that normal?"** she asked seeing Frost not even flinch taking a bolt to the chest.

 **"Yeah. He can help me charge up with lightning. These sort of attacks are very hard to pull off and very energy consuming. Barry already knows why"** She smiled at Thea while she was still looking behind her. The Ice rain still continued and only came to a stop a few minutes later. When the two speedsters returned at the scene of the meeting all the drones were down and out, most of them severely damaged. In a moment of inspiration Barry and Caitlin, helped by Thea, gathered all the intact chips and power cells. They grabbed the materials, as Thea and Oliver and raced back to the Arrow cave. Meanwhile, back at the STAR West building, older Barry and Kara had some problems of their own.

 **"Felicity, there are at least 40 drones that are heading straight toward the building."** Kara started to count seeing them from afar with her enhanced vision.

 **"Drones, yea ... how about those two"** older Barry pointed to two large assault vehicles that were moving down the street.

 **"One thing at a time, I'll take the drones, you see if you can stop those monstrosities"** She smiled and flew into the air starting to blast away at the drones while they were quite far from the building. They didn't seem too sturdy, a focused blast of high temperature heat vision was enough to bring them down or outright destroy them. However, concentrating her powers into so many shots to take out the drones were straining Kara, even though she had lost only 15 % of her power since she started, there were always more drones.

Menace on the other hand was doing rather well with the assault craft, he even managed to run around them in a way that made them fire at each other. Sadly they were pretty well armored and the shots only made some dents in the plating and exploded. The damage done was minimal, the shots only resulting in some dented plating, nothing more.

 **"I can't use the supersonic punch or anything of the sort"** he told Kara. **"If I do half the windows in this city will shatter, or worse, the sonic boom can leave the people close to here deaf. I need to get there machines somewhere else. I'll try to bait them so they follow me out of the city"**

 **"Be careful and don't get yourself killed. Call if you need for help, I'm here"** she replied and he nodded. He started to throw bolts at the assault vehicles while Kara was playing shoot the duck. The drones were moving pretty fast except her vision was instant and had pinpoint accuracy. They had nowhere to run. She was careless allowing some of the drones to come up from behind. The bullets didn't hurt her and before she managed to have a chance to light them up while she turned, she saw four large ice spears that impaled them sending them to the ground. Frost was at the top of the building were her and her Barry had stood before grinning at her.

 **"Glad you could join the battle. Did everything go all right with at the meeting site?"** Kara asked. She was happy that her Barry suddenly got a helper. From her point of view the two Flashes were having fun with the attack vehicles.

 **"It was a trap. Much like we had expected. There were quite a few drones but I took them out with a freezing rain attack. I would do the same here, but we're in town and casualties are a large probability. Which means we have to take them out one by one. Problem is there no place where I can get a good vantage point to attack them which is kind of annoying"** Frost replied. Kara snickered, she went down and grabbed Caitlin flying with her straight up and in striking distance of the rest of the drones.

 **"How's this for a vantage point?"** She grinned. Caitlin had been flying with her before and knew that the best way not to get sick was to not look down. She focused her attacks on the drones

 **"Way better. Thank you. Now how about we destroy these guys. Maybe then we can go lend a hand to the runners down there"** she grinned destroying two more drones with ice spears.

 **"My sentiments exactly"** The reply came and Kara started to blast away at the drones again with her heat vision holding Caitlin steady in the air as she skewered more of them. The two Flashes stepped for a second away from the attack vehicles and looked up.

 **"Now that is what I call teamwork. No wonder those two are such good friends"** young Barry chuckled.

 **"I never thought it see that in my life. I often wondered how those two would work together in my time. Now apparently I don't have to. They are amazing"** older Barry smirked

 **"That doesn't surprise me in the slightest. Now back to our business, how can we take those attack machines out? The drones are almost down, but we still have those two to deal with"** young Barry asked

 **"I suspect you already know how to phase. Did you try phasing a large object before?"** the inquiry came from the older one.

 **"No. How does that work and how is that relevant?"** he responded.

 **"Simple. When you phase an object, if you take your hands off of it while the object is intangible, then the molecules disperse and it gets destroyed. I would take care of them myself, but I'm pretty sure I only have enough energy for one and after that not to black out"** Older Barry explained.

 **"I can try. All I have to do is match the vibrations of the object with my phasing and when the molecules are in a state of flux just let go, right?"** the question came.

 **"Pretty much. So … want to give it a try?"** his older version asked with a grin.

 **"Yeah. Let's do it"** the grin appeared on the other one as well. The two flashed toward the attack vehicles and both picked one and started to vibrate. It took a lot out of both of them, but nowhere near dangerous levels. After a few seconds the vehicles became almost intangible at which point both took their hands off them and they simply dissolved into nothingness leaving the street clear of any attackers. Kara had seen this before, Caitlin however did not. As the two landed near the panting Flashes she asked with a surprised voice.

 **"What did you two do?"**

 **"We vibrated the attackers like we were phasing and then let go. Causing the molecules to lose cohesion and simply poof into nothing"** Older Barry smiled.

 **"That is a pretty neat trick. Flash? I will want you to show me how to do it"** Caitlin chimed toward her husband

 **"Sure, Frost, whenever you want"** he replied. The four heroes now quite depleted of energy returned to the Arrow cave where Frost had already deposited the two archers before. Cisco already was waiting for them with a truckload of pizzas and Bette had returned too. Kara had seen her use directed concussive blasts to keep drones from reaching anywhere near the buildings. The speedsters and the alien attacked the food and in a few minutes it was all gone.

 **"Nice work keeping them off the building, Bette. Didn't know you could produce blasts out of nothing"** Kara looked surprised at the security chief.

 **"It's something I'm still learning to control, but it's a new power that I have been training to use with Cisco. Me this and him with his vibrational blasts"** She replied with a happy face. You could see however that she was pretty tired.

 **"They take a lot out of you, don't they?"** Older Barry asked pretty bluntly.

 **"Yes they do. Initially I could only do it if I had a medium through which to transfer the explosive power, like ground or maybe some sort of conductor, steel, a tree or something related. That is way easier. I have learned however to produce them out of the air as well. It takes a lot more concentration and control, but I can do it as you have seen"** Bette said with a proud look on her face.

 **"Told you she's a bad ass"** Cisco smiled at her.

 **"Very nicely done keeping them away from the building. I wouldn't want to zap half of our monthly budget on repairs. Not like that would be a problem but still"** Felicity smiled.

 **"I thought last Christmas we had broken the usual "nearing Christmas let's burn the city and get a new villain" curse. Apparently that was not so. At least this time Felicity didn't get shot"** Oliver grinned.

 **"Not get shot, yes. That is indeed a plus"** Felicity let go of a mini ramble.

 **"Cisco, can you send us back home? I would rather not have to run back to Central City so that Kara could use her breach generator to take us straight to National City. That phasing trick took quite a lot out of me"** older Barry told the engineer. He put on his gauntlets and produced a vortex that would take them straight back to the field outside National City.

 **"Thank you for the help you two"** Caitlin said with a thankful tone.

 **"No problem, I did say quite a few times that you can call us whenever you need us. As will we if we ever need your help. That's what friends are for"** Kara smiled at her. Older Barry was so tired that he only managed to nod while yawning **"See you later, I need to take this old man to bed. He's already sleeping"** Older Barry wanted to argue, but instead he just smiled. Kara grabbed him and went through the breach which closed behind her.

 **"So what are you two going to do?"** Felicity asked.

 **"We are going to sleep it off in the suite on the executive level. We've burned a lot of power ourselves. That rain attack takes way more out of me than I want. That's why I don't really use it that much"** Caitlin replied and Barry nodded, yawning heavily himself.

 **"I've already set you up with a room at the hotel since I suppose you two will want to stay as well and leave with them in the morning"** Felicity looked at Cisco and Bette

 **"Thank you. Then we should be going as well. Nice work out there today"** Cisco congratulated everyone.

 **"Let us hope this doesn't become a habit. I would like my holidays free of this sort of bullshit"** Oliver said in an annoyed tone. They all said their goodbyes and left to their respective sleeping venues hoping that Star City would not have another terrorist attack until the holidays were over. Barry and Caitlin got into bed and cuddled into one another starting to chat mentally as they usually did before going to bed

 ** _"Oliver was right, this is like a curse. I hope that we don't have to do this every year from now on. You know, unknown villain tries to destroy Star City. Christmas edition"_** Barry thought to his wife.

 ** _"That would have been way more fun if this was London"_** Caitlin chuckled

 ** _"Why would that be more fun, are you trying to pull a brit reference here?"_** the speedster asked his wife.

 ** _"Because if this was London then at least we could speed through the city and look for a blue box. If we found it at least we would know what we would need to expect from the future"_** She replied nonchalantly

 ** _"You mean all kinds of aliens that want to destroy the Earth? Yeah, how about no. I doubt the Doctor exists in this universe and I definitely don't want to battle aliens that want to take over the planet, for the sole reason that we exist"_** Barry replied and they both started to laugh. They calmed down soon after and fell into a deep sleep, their bodied needing rest from the events of the day that had ended.

* * *

AN: To my guest reviewer ( as i usually PM the others ) : You would be completely right, there is no way the MC, with comprehensive medical knowledge as shown through out the story, would know that his wife might have morning sickness. Or, you know, he might have something planned for it? I dunno. :P


	52. News

Over the last few weeks, Caitlin had been having issues with her stomach. Sometimes it was just not being able to eat food, sometimes she would just puke out of nowhere. She always managed to get to a bathroom in time since she was a speedster. Barry had caught that quite a few times, but she always told him it was a stomach flu. She wasn't Kara, she could get sick just like any normal human. The instances in which that happened were rare at first and then their rate of appearance started to spike. Barry wasn't an idiot, just an airhead, he knew exactly what was going on, even if Caitlin chose to ignore it for a bit.

There were three days left till Christmas and she was in the lab alone with Cisco and Bette. Barry had something to work on with Tina at Mercury and she didn't need to go along. Out of nowhere Henry showed up to say hello.

 **"Hello, everyone. Just thought I's drop by to see how my two favorite kids are doing"** He smiled and chuckled at what he said

 **"Hey, Henry. Well I'm afraid Barry is talking Business with your new girlfriend so he isn't here right now. You only get me"** Caitlin smiled. She ended her sentence and sped out of the cortex to the bathroom. Then she came back with an annoyed look on her face.

 **"What's up with you? Did you eat something that didn't agree with you?"** Henry asked.

 **"I don't know. I've been having this strange stomach flu for a few weeks now. I can't seem to get rid of it. I know speedsters are basically human so we can get sick and have viruses, but god this is a pain in the ass"** She replied with a visibly annoyed face.

 **"Caitlin, me and Bette are going to big belly burger to get some food. Do you want something?"** Cisco asked as he always did when he went out for food

 **"No thanks, Cisco. The last time I had somewhere for there I puked for a few days. I'm going to stay away from their food for a while. At least until I get this bug under control"** She replied with a smile. The two left, but Henry had a grin on his face. **"What are you grinning about?"** she looked at him quizzically.

 **"Caitlin for an MD, you are surprisingly dense. However, since I know you and how you think, I'm guessing you chose to ignore it rather than face the reality of it all? Which again, is very surprising. I don't think you are going to get rid of this bug for at least … another 9 months"** Henry started to laugh while saying that

 **"Huh? What are you referring to …"** you could see on her face the moment the wheels clicked and she got what he was grinning about **"Oh"** She realized it a long time ago, but for some reason the thought processes that led her to that conclusion were clouded enough to ignore them. At first she thought that it was because she wasn't ready for a child and wanted to ignore the reality of it, but that surely could not have been what happened. She shook her head at her own airhead behavior **_"I swear that being around Barry has had at least some effect on me"_** and she smiled to herself saying that.

 **"This matter can be cleared pretty simply by asking a short question. When was your last period?"** Her brain was working at super speed and she finally realized that she was late by quite a lot.

 **"I don't even remember to be honest. There was so much to do and so little time that I forgot to actually pay attention to my body. But if what I do remember is correct then I'm … quite late"** she replied truthfully.

 **"Well how about you go pee on a stick. That should clear up everything. If you get strange results you can get a blood test and see for yourself"** Henry smiled

 **"Too lazy to go buy a stick. I'll just do the blood test. I have some blood that I took from myself two days ago as well to find out if I had a viral infection. I just didn't test for something else"** She replied going over to a workstation and getting a blood collection kit. In a few minutes she had a vial of blood as well as the vial of blood that she had kept stored from two days ago on which she started tests on. Henry was very interested to see what she would find. The tests were quite conclusive, she was definitely pregnant **"Well this explains everything then. The HCG levels are telling the whole story. They doubled in the last 48 hours. I can't believe that I was this blind. You`re right, Henry, for a doctor I can be quite dense sometimes. It's not like Barry and I didn't do anything either, but somehow this possibility just didn't come up in my mind or i somehow completely ignored it"**

 **"Caitlin, no offense but I would rather not talk about your sex life with my son all right?"** The man started to chuckle **"So you are indeed pregnant. Well, I guess I'm getting a grandson then"** The reality sunk into Caitlin quite quickly. She was ecstatic, she always wanted children and now she was carrying his child. The man who she loved and always wanted to be with. She immediately stopped and started to control her feelings, she knew they would spill over to him and he would immediately get the idea of what was happening.

 **"Or a granddaughter, but yes, you are correct. I'm definitely pregnant"** That's what she managed to say

 **"Congratulations. So? When are you planning to tell the happy father?"** Henry smiled at her with such a wide and happy smile it was something that she had never seen on him

 **"Christmas is just a few days away. I'll give him a nice present then. Ever since that first Christmas where he managed to show me how beautiful the holiday is and the second one where, well you were present too, you remember what happened then"** she got cut off

 **"You mean the one with the corny proposal in a Christmas gift? Oh yeah, I remember that one"** Henry started to laugh.

 **"Yes, that one. He has consistently made my winter holidays more and more beautiful. I think it's time I return the favor, don't you?"** she chuckled.

 **"I know the bond you two have, are you going to be able to keep this from him? You seem way too excited and I know he's not stupid. Sooner or later he will ask what's with you and the puking and all the other stuff. If he hasn't put it together, then the moment you give him an opportunity to see all your symptoms as a whole, he will realize what's happening just like you did. I'm guessing you should be around 2 months along now, by what you told me earlier"** Henry made it painfully obvious that it was going to be very hard to hide her pregnancy from her husband.

 **"It's only for a few days. I don't intent to keep it more from him that to give him a surprise. If he figures it out himself, well it's going to be a surprise either way"** She replied happily

 **"I guess you`re right. This is what I get. I come here to greet my kids, one's gone and I find out the other is pregnant. Merry flippin` Christmas"** the man started to laugh loudly.

 **"Eh. If not you would have probably found at the party just like everyone else"** she replied quite happily

 **"Party? What party?"** the man looked at her a bit strange.

 **"The one we're going to throw. I didn't want to make my own, I thought that going at the one that Joe throws every Christmas would be enough, but I see that this special occasion requires a special event to celebrate it. Which means, I'm throwing a party. Well, not just me, Barry and I. You get it."** She replied

 **"Well, you know I'm in. And probably Tina is as well"** he replied.

 **"I don't think you met the Older Barry that we sent to earth 38 yet, did you?"** she inquired

 **"You met an older Barry? Mind explaining that one again? I thought I was hearing things"** Henry looked at her quite surprised.

 **"It's a long story. He is still your son. But from 8 years in the future. He came back to change the past because he was alone. I died, you died, almost everyone died because of a villain we fought and defeated here in our timeline. After everything he still managed to fall in love with someone. That someone is Kara Danvers. Remember her?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"Yes, the alien girl with the amazing powers from one of the other earths"** Henry remembered who she was talking about.

 **"Well he came back and pushed me into the lightning with Barry. Effectively creating Frost. He did a whole lot more but after all he had to go through, we decided he deserved a second chance at life and we sent him to earth 38. Maybe he could spark something with Our Kara Danvers. And apparently… he has"** Caitlin spoke quite happily.

 **"But why tell me this now? It only serves to confuse me more"** Henry looked at her crooked.

 **"Because I want to invite Kara to the Christmas Party which means he will more than likely be with her. I can't invite her without him. That would be rude. Besides he's a friend too. He has been helping us with certain issues during the past weeks. I just told you so you don't freak out"** Caitlin smiled brightly at Henry.

 **"Thanks for the heads up. I would definitely freak out if I see two of them in the same room. You seem to be oddly ok with all of this. Your lives must be so much stranger than ours"** Henry quipped

 **"You think? After remembering seeing us together 18 years before we were, you still consider your life as normal?"** Caitlin started to laugh.

 **"Fair point. Well, I'm going back to see how Tina is doing. Congrats again and I'll see you at the party then"** he responded

 **"Bye, dad"** she replied making him smile as he went out the cortex. Bette and Cisco were back from lunch.

 **"Did we hear, party?"** Bette chuckled

 **"That would not surprise me at all"** Cisco voiced **"It's becoming a tradition now. This would be the third year in a row where we would have a Christmas party"**

 **"I guess you`re right, Cisco. This is a tradition, although this time I'm going to throw it"** Caitlin told them

 **"Ah I see so not the regular party at Joe's like the last years. Fine by me, but why would you throw it?"** Cisco asked surprised **"You aren't really the party hard type of girl"** Caitlin weighed in her mind if she should or should not tell Cisco and Bette anything. In the end she decided she should, the engineer was her best friend besides Felicity and Bette had proven that she can keep a secret when needed.

 **"It's a special occasion"** She held up a batch of results **"If you guys tell anyone about this I swear you are going to feel how hard frostbite can hurt when it's applied to your butts. Understand?"** the two didn't seem to get it at first until they read what she was holding. The results were pretty clear _"HCG Level increase 110% - Probable cause. Early stage pregnancy"_

 **"Oh MY GOD!"** Bette almost jumped **"Is that what I think it is?"**

 **"Yeah. I was too lazy to get a stick to pee on so I did it the bioengineering way. With a blood test"** Caitlin replied rather absentmindedly.

 **"Congratulations, oh. That's why you told us to keep quiet. You want to surprise Barry. Which explains why you want to throw the party yourselves"** Cisco suddenly realized.

 **"Precisely. Not a word out of you two. I want this to be the best present I can give Barry for Christmas"** She replied with a happy face suddenly turning the test results into ice and the paper crumble into pieces so small that they could not have been assembled back together with tweezers.

 **"Not a word from us. Still, congratulations"** Cisco and Bette gave Caitlin a large hug. The timing was fortunate, Barry speeding back into the Cortex just in time to hear nothing else but Congratulations.

 **"Congratulations for what?"** he asked looking at his wife.

 **"She finally decided to throw your own Christmas party"** Cisco decided to cover for what would have been his own blunder seeing Caitlin a bit surprised by the question.

 **"Did she now?"** Barry eyed his wife intently who was fidgeting. He knew something was out of place, Caitlin was not a parson to throw parties **"So what brought this on?"**

 **"That's very simple, I would have no problem with the party we all go to at Joe's, but you know we have a lot of friends now that I would like to be there. I thought that the penthouse would be a better place since it's much larger compared to Joe's house"** She replied trying hard to keep the real reason hidden

 **"That does make sense, if we invite everyone from the other earths as well then we do need a whole lot of space"** Barry thought it out. **"Ok, we're doing it then. Same time only a different place?"**

 **"Pretty much. I think we should start telling everyone early so they don't get a surprise. Maybe Joe doesn't need to put up everything if the party is here instead of at his place"** Caitlin replied. **"I'm just going to let Kara know in advance, so she can refuse if she and Barry want to do something else by themselves"** she picked up the phone and dialed in the other earth.

 **"Hey, Kara."** she greeted the alien **"How have you been?"**

 **"Hey, Caitlin. I've been great. Greatly enjoying the surprise you guys sent my way"** the answer came and Caitlin suddenly got a large smile on her face. Her husband had the same grin.

 **"We thought you might love that surprise. We could see it on your faces when you came back here how much you enjoyed being together"** Younger Barry commented

 **"You two are literally my heroes"** Older Barry replied from the other side of the line

 **"You`re welcome. But that's not what we called. We`re having a get together for Christmas Eve with friends and we thought you might want to come"** Caitlin told them. There was a bit of silence and the Kara responded

 **"We'll be there, when? I guess where doesn't matter"**

 **"The day after tomorrow, Christmas Eve, at 7 PM. Since you won't be needing your suits we'll have Cisco come get you"** Young Barry told them

 **"We have the suits on us anyway. I have my necklace and Barry has the same ring you do. Ok , 7 PM it is. Want us to bring anything?"** Kara asked.

 **"Tell them to bring a couple of dozen donuts from that place we went to. Those are amazing, I still haven't managed to find donuts as delicious as those"** Caitlin thought to him.

 **"Joy, good cheer and maybe a couple of dozen of donuts from your favorite place. Caitlin has been dying to have some of those again"** Barry added for his older self

 **"I thought she might want that. Will do. See you then"** Kara replied

 **"See you then"** Caitlin retorted and the line closed **"Ok so now we know that those two are coming, we should talk to the others as well."**

 **"All right then. I'll talk to Joe. He might be a bit disappointed that we don't get to do the party at his place like always, but he'll get over it soon enough"** Barry smiled and went outside to talk to his foster father. Bette and Cisco were all a grin as soon as the speedster went out of the Cortex.

 **"Remember you two"** Caitlin iced her hands up **"Frostbite in the most unusual places if you say anything"** The two nodded and grinned even more. She picked up the phone to call Felicity. Barry was talking already with Joe in the hall.

 **"Morning, Joe."** He greeted his foster father.

 **"Morning, Bar. What's up?"** the answer came

 **"You don't mind if hold the West Christmas part at our place, do you?"** Barry inquired.

 **"No, of course I don't. It saves me the trouble of decorating my whole house. I actually wanted to ask if you and Caitlin want to come help me decorate like you did the years before"** he told the speedster

 **"All right then, well the party is at 7 PM on Christmas Eve. You are welcome to come earlier to help us prepare like we came every year. I know it gets lonely in that large house** " Barry smiled.

 **"I'll be there"** Joe replied with an excited voice.

 **"All right. See you then. We'll get everything ready in the meantime"** Barry told him and closed the line, going back to the Cortex where Caitlin was talking to Felicity.

 **"So you in?"** She asked the blonde.

 **"Yep. I'll try to have a surprise ready for Thea and get the time travelers group there as well. I know she misses Ray and would love to have him to herself for Christmas"** Felicity replied.

 **"All right, then that's settled. You and Oliver, Ray and Thea, Lyla and Diggle, Curtis and his husband, Sara and Jax, Stein and Clarissa, that's whose coming. Did I miss anyone?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"No. I don't think so. I would like to invite Mick, but I don't feel that good having a reformed criminal in our midst"** the answer came.

 **"I wouldn't know. Maybe you know him better than I do. We only had to fight him so, ask Ray and Sarah and see what happens. If they are ok with them and he is indeed a part of their team then invite him as well"** Caitlin replied quite sternly.

 **"All right. We'll get them and come to the city, or maybe we can hitch a ride on the Wave Rider. We shall see"** Felicity added

 **"See you then"** Caitlin replied and closed the line. Barry was grinning in front of her. **"Why are you grinning, Mr. Allen?"** she asked giving him a large smile.

 **"Joe said he is going to come early to help us set up everything. He's fine with us holding the party at our place"** The answer came **"I need to talk to my dad"**

 **"No need. He came by here earlier when you were at Tina's. I told him to come and bring her as well"** Caitlin interjected.

 **"I didn't know he was here earlier. Who else do we have to invite then**?" Barry asked his wife.

 **"Well, Harry, Jesse and Wally. That should be enough I think"** Caitlin replied and pushes a button on her bracer. **"Cisco, can you do one of your ghost impersonations and ask Harry, Wally and Jesse if they want to come over for the Christmas party?"**

 **"Yep, I'll let them know. Where doesn't matter since I can bring them over, when?"** the engineer replied through the com

 **"Christmas Eve, 7 Pm."** Barry replied for her.

 **"You got it. I'll contact them right now"** the answer came and he closed the channel.

 **"Let's get cracking then. We have a Christmas party to plan"** Barry grinned.

Over the next few days the two speedsters got everything ready. They got a large tree for the living room and had to buy another set of decorations, only these ones were larger and there were a lot more of them. Since this abode was way larger than their last one the sheer quantity of decorations was immense. They didn't really care, since they had enough storage space at STAR Labs to put them away or even in the basement at their vacation house. Barry had been reading a lot, Caitlin saw that he kept changing books whenever he had time, but the covers on the books never made sense to her. They looked like medical manuals in format, but the paper covers they had on them actually said something about mystery novels. That for her was rather strange, but she let it go. It was pretty hard containing her happiness after she found out that she was pregnant, a few times Barry detecting that from her, but he chalked it up to the fact that the holidays were coming and she loved having them with the family.

The days passed rather quickly, since they were needed at the CCPD, as usual like on every Christmas the metahuman threat seemed to had taken a break for the holidays, the human one decided to step up their game. They did manage to go through the evidence that they were provided rather quickly, by working at their usual super speed. They were careless however, because now since she was part of the metahuman squad, Patty Spivot had free access to the lab like Eddie and Joe did. So the fact they closed the door didn't do much for them. She was sitting in the doorway watching the usual lightning dance that the two put out when they had something to do. They stopped and looked at her realizing that they kind of screwed up, seeing her face and her jaw on the floor.

 **"Hello, Patty. Is there anything we can help you with?"** Barry asked quite nonchalantly, trying to downplay the fact that she had seen them speed around and more than likely figured out who they two were.

 **"Yeah, I came to get a set of evidence I had here for a few days. I had no idea what I would walk into"** She barely managed to talk, still visibly shocked.

 **"We would have thought you would have figured it out by now. You`re a smart woman. I guess we were wrong"** Caitlin smiled **"Close the door and take a seat, we were actually working on the evidence you brought us. Since we were kind of busy we have a bit of a backlog, so we decided to take care of it in one go"** She started to flash around continuing to work

 **"So you two are Flash and Frost huh? I didn't really care about the heroes' identities to be honest, because I loved what they did to keep the city safe. But now that I think of it, it does make sense. You were never around when those two were saving the city. I actually came and checked a few times. But after we found out that you own and manage STAR Labs I always chalked it up to you two being really busy"** she sat down looking mesmerized by the trail of silver lightning that Caitlin put out while she worked.

 **"Pretty much. Captain Singh pegged us a while back. Joe and Eddie already knew, so we thought you'd figure it out eventually"** Barry started to flash around working himself.

 **"I don't really know what to say. I was expecting a surprise, maybe that I would find my evidence already processed, but this classifies as a surprise as well. Explains why most of your reports now are written by Joe and Eddie. I don't think I've seen a single report from any of you ever since you took over STAR Labs"** Patty replied with her eyes glued on the dance of lightning. Barry stopped for a bit.

 **"Joe told us that captain Singh told them to make sure the reports added up. Since we were busy with STAR, saving the city, STAR West and the CCPD CSI jobs, we welcomed the idea, because paperwork would take up a lot of our time. We did want to help as much as we could, but that was just annoying"** the speedster told her while resuming his work.

 **"Why are you two doing this anyway? I understand that you love your jobs, but do you even have enough time in a day to manage everything?"** Patty asked quite surprised.

 **"We don't have to manage everything, Patty"** Caitlin stopped **"STAR West is managed by a very good friend of ours. Felicity Queen. We rarely have to go there unless there is something she expressly needs our skills for. You know like something bioengineering or genetics related. STAR Labs is managed in our absence by Cisco and his girlfriend, which you already know. So you see, we don't really have that much to do, that's why we keep the job here. With our speed we can have everything done much faster and make sure that there is no backlog at any time. Everyone gets their evidence done so they can put people behind bars or, as the case may be, prove someone else innocent"** she resumed her work.

 **"This just seems really strange to me. You two are the richest couple in this city at this time. Some would say that you are the second most powerful couple after Flash and Frost. Yet you still try to help wherever you can. I find that commendable, most rich people I know are only interested in themselves and their money, not in how to make life better for everyone else"** the detective spoke this time with a bit of admiration in her voice.

 **"Patty, you have to understand something"** Barry stopped this time **"We weren't always rich. I was just a CSI with the dream of getting his father out of prison. Caitlin was a researcher at STAR. Most of the rich people that come from money can be like that. Except I can find you at least one example where we know that's not the case. Oliver Queen, the mayor of STAR City and Felicity's husband. He was very rich once and by what I have been told he acted precisely like you described. But he changed, he is now a man I'm happy to call a very good friend and he has been so from the time we first met, which was before we got the amount of money we now can manage"**

 **"Well yes, apparently a friend so good that you had him as best man at your wedding. I was really surprised about that. I had no idea how many connections you two have"** She responded.

 **"Connections, you might call them that. Most of the people that you regard as that are our friends. Oliver, Ray Palmer, Tina McGee those are close friends and people we care about"** Barry replied and started speeding around again

 **"Here is the evidence you wanted"** Caitlin stopped and gave her a file. She had been working on that specifically to get to Patty before she left.

 **"Wow that was fast. I saw you starting work on that when I came in"** the detective responded quite surprised.

 **"Super speed is very useful when you have a lot of work to do and need things to be finished fast. One more thing, while I don't doubt you I just thought I should make one thing clear. Don't go spreading around what you know** " Caitlin gave her a strange look and Patty could see that her eyes were flashing silver lightning.

 **"Of course not. I wouldn't dream of it. Who does know actually beside Joe, Eddie and the captain? I don't really want to run my mouth if I don't know who to speak to when you two are involved"** She replied.

 **"You should go talk to Captain Singh. He had a list of people that have signed NDA's about our other identities. I would suggest you just keep it between you three. They have known for a while and since they are in the same department as you are then that should present no issue"** Barry told her as he stopped as well **"That's done. We can go home now, Cait"**

 **"Patty, can you let the other detectives now that the backlog is now cleared and all the evidence has been processed?"** Caitlin smiled at her.

 **"Yep. I'll do that. Thanks for finishing this so soon. Also, thanks for saving me that time with Sand Demon. I always wanted to thank the two heroes for making sure I didn't die a horrible death, now, I can"** she replied showing them the file **"So how does this work, I have never seen lightning through the precinct so I suspect you two have an alternate exit?"**

 **"Always. Take care Patty and Merry Christmas"** the two simply jumped out the window and sped down the side of the building going toward STAR. The detective was left surprised by the way the two lightning trails were intermingling and smiled. She had a new found respect for the two, knowing what they did in and out of the CCPD. Since it was already Christmas Eve the couple decided to flash back to the laboratory where they found no one. So they went back to the penthouse. Much to their surprise they were not alone. Cisco and Bette were there dressed in house clothes cleaning, Eddie and Iris were there helping to get everything ready, Joe came early as well, without his date apparently who had to be somewhere else.

 **"Well this is something. We thought you all would be at home finishing your own Christmas decorations"** Barry smiled at the people that were getting busy.

 **"You told everyone about this party two days in advance. We just had to step up our schedule. We already have everything done at home"** Eddie smiled.

 **"Besides, we kind of missed helping the last two years. Since now you have this mansion, we have something to do. Even though you two can probably clean everything out and move faster than we ever could, we wanted to come help"** Iris pitched in. Caitlin looked at Cisco and Bette.

 **"What about you two?"** she asked.

 **"We thought the same as these guys"** Cisco smiled and motioned toward Eddie and Iris.

 **"Since we knew about the party in advance we thought we should come help to put everything in order"** The two speedsters looked at the people that were each doing something to help prepare the party they wanted to throw. They got busy themselves, they had ordered gifts for everyone as they usually did, they were in the server room and since nobody actually went in there, they were safe. Eddie and Iris were busy putting up decorations in the main area, Cisco and Bette took to the guest room to liven up the mood there as well, Joe was cooking. He seemed very happy being here with all of them.

 **"Still think you might be alone?"** Caitlin asked him with a large smile on her face.

 **"No. I don't. I see now what you meant back then, that even though we don't live in the same place we are still a family. An extended one at that, since Cisco and Bette are here as well as Eddie"** The detective replied.

 **"I still remember that time when you threatened to shoot Eddie when Iris told you about him. I'm thankful you didn't have your gun with you back then. That would have been the single worst mistake of your life"** Barry grinned.

 **"Well if we have to peg a mistake that I almost made, wanting to shoot Eddie isn't the biggest one"** Joe rubbed his head.

 **"That would be the fact that you almost refused Eddie to marry your daughter"** Caitlin whispered. She knew that they never spoke of that ever again. Joe wasn't happy with the way he acted back then.

 **"Yeah. That would be it. I'm glad she never found out. I realize how stupid I acted back then when I see them now together. I'm glad you two stopped me from making that mistake. I was also a bit disappointed when the two told me that they don't really plan on having kids, but since you two have said that you want them I don't think I'm going to miss the grandfather category"** The detective smiled brightly at the couple who was holding their hands.

 **"That is surprising. Did the two give any sort of reason as to why they don't want children?"** Barry asked with a weird face.

 **"Not to me. You can go ask them yourselves if you want, maybe they will be more opened to talking to you about it rather than me"** the reply came so the two speedsters decided to do just that. They hadn't talked for a while with Iris and Eddie anyway, each being with their own things and now was a perfect time. They walked around to the couple who was now hanging ornaments around the living room.

 **"Thanks for coming, you two. This feels more like a family thing now than the times you weren't there"** Barry smiled

 **"Well, those first two years with me and Eddie were … let's just say we didn't really care about anyone, but ourselves. You two know how love is. This year however we reminded ourselves that we have family as well. This is a holiday that you should spend with that family. At least Christmas Eve is"** Iris replied.

 **"We have something we'd like to ask. It might be a bit personal so feel free to not answer if we're poking into your business"** Caitlin inquired and the two of them nodded silently **"Do you two ever want kids? I mean we talked about us enough and almost everyone here knows that we want a family"**

 **"I would have wanted kids, yes. But after that whole debacle with the Reverse Flash being Eddie's ancestor …"** Iris started

 **"We kind of decided it would be best not to have them. We wouldn't want any more crazed speedsters from the future trying to come back and kill us just for the fun of it"** Eddie continued.

 **"How about if I tell you otherwise. Even if you two decided that you aren't going to have children. Eobard is still out there. We fought him a while back. Yes, I do know that he is supposed to be dead, but apparently he found a way to continue his line. Something about having some samples preserved and put into storage at a sperm bank. So you not having kids because of that reason is … kind of irrelevant"** Barry told them which prompted a surprised look from the two

 **"It seems that it doesn't matter what you do, The Speed Force will preserve him to keep the balance and with him having backup plans in place to ensure his existence, the only two people losing out on what they want are just you two"** Caitlin spoke quite sternly

 **"So wait, you mean to tell me that no matter what we do that maniac still exists out there somewhere?"** Eddie looked at them with a frustrated face.

 **"Yep. Pretty much. You should reconsider having children if you both want to. It doesn't matter what the future brings, we're strong enough to face it together"** Barry smiled looking at his wife.

 **"Thank you for letting us know about that. We thought we a part of the blame for Eobard. But since you gave us this news now … we might actually reconsider. What do you say, honey?"** Eddie looked at Iris whose eyes were almost sparkling.

 **"I say yes. I want to have children"** She said with quite a loud voice prompting Joe to throw an inquisitive look at the two speedsters.

 **"Good. We thought you should know. It's your choice of course, but you shouldn't deprive yourselves of what you want because of something that might happen in the future. Remember, it is not set in stone, what we do in the present affects it."** Caitlin smiled. The two seemed pretty happy at hearing this prompting the speedster couple to head back to Joe.

 **"What did you two tell them?"**

 **"They thought that they were to blame for Eobard. Since he was Eddie's ancestor. However ever since they decided to not have kids, we have fought him once again, in the past. He is still out there and he exists which means them not having kids will have no pull on his existence. When we told them that, they were very relieved"** Barry informed his adoptive father.

 **"In the past?"** Joe made large eyes at the two speedsters' statements.

 **"It's a long story. We can share it some other time. Suffice it to say that some of our friends have a time ship and go around protecting history from the likes of those who want to destroy it. Don't worry, you'll meet them pretty soon"** Caitlin hit the nail on the head harder leaving Joe with his jaw on the ground.

 **"Just when I thought my life couldn't get any weirder. Alternate timelines, parallel universes and now people that protect the timeline. I don't think you two can top that off with anything more"** Joe looked at the two

 **"I think we can, you will probably meet another version of Barry pretty soon. He came back to change something that in his future went completely off the rails and he got stuck here. We met him while we were on our honeymoon. His Caitlin died and after a long while he managed to fall in love with someone else. So we sent him to see if he can rekindle that romance"** Caitlin told the detective who's jaw fell immediately at listening to what she has to say.

 **"Where did you send him?"** he asked.

 **"Earth 38. The person he fell in love with is none other than Kara Danvers. It seems that in his timeline they cooperated and fought alongside each other quite frequently"** Barry replied **"Since we invited Kara to the house warming party we thought why not invite her to spend Christmas with us as well, but since apparently now those two are a couple, we extended the invite to him as well"** Barry replied quite in detail to his question.

 **"This I have to see. So you`re telling me that now I have TWO sons, each with his own girl, one here and one in another universe?"** the detective asked with wide eyes.

 **"Indeed you do. You'll see when they get here"** Barry smiled.

 **"Barry, I had no idea that you could be such a dog"** Joe started to laugh prompting a weird look from Caitlin and a chuckle from his son.

The two speedsters started to do some work of their own, helping the others here and there to get everything done faster. Iris commented that it was a pity that she couldn't fly because there were decorations to be put on the ceiling of the large room which was about 10 meters off the floor. Barry and Caitlin just grinned and they did that themselves seeing that with enough speed they could run up the walls and even upside down as they had tried on several occasions in the speed lab. It didn't take long and everything was ready, except the tree. Barry put some Christmas music on and they all took a break getting something to eat and getting some rest. After that was done, the people started to decorate the tree with the couple.

 **"I've always thought that we would only do this by ourselves. You, me and Joe. At least for a couple of Christmases more"** Caitlin smiled at her husband.

 **"It was always about family. Not counting my dad which is probably out with Tina somewhere right now looking for presents, everyone here is family. Decorating the tree with them seems like the perfect thing to do before Christmas Eve, don't you think?"** Barry replied putting another ornament on the tree.

 **"Yes. I would say so. I wish I'd have thought to invite Kara and the other you back here as well to participate. There's nobody else you can call family more than yourself and Kara already is family"** Caitlin replied as they started to dance around the house at the sound of the Christmas music. The others looking at them and continuing to hang ornaments on the tree.

 **"I'm sure those two have decorating of their own to do. I'm glad I thought about sending him to Earth 38. They seem to be really happy together and it took even less time than I initially thought. You were definitely on point when you said she had a really hefty crush on me"** Barry thought to her.

 **"I knew that's how it was. I even invited her to the wedding so maybe she would get some closure and think about having a life with someone else. Don't take this the wrong way, I did want her for a bridesmaid as well, but I thought she would see the finality of having a crush on you when we finally got married"** She retorted making Barry smile

 **"I thought that would be one of the reasons, after you told me later on in more detail about the crush. She might have gotten over it, if we didn't send over another version of me to call her own, what was it? A month later?"** Barry started to laugh. The people around the room looked at him strangely, but realized the two were talking, which was by now a normal event in the Allen household, so they went back to decorating.

 **"I think that's about how much it actually passed. Three weeks to a month. But you saw how happy she was when she helped us with Oliver's issue. We knew she was already happy most of the time and had a bubbly personality, but the way she acted now was over the top. It was like she was oozing happiness. I'm really happy that we found him to be honest. I was a bit sad for her, she deserved to be happy and now she is"** Caitlin smiled at her husband.

 **"I think happy is an understatement, Cait. I'll take it thought, because I feel the same way. Sure I don't have the feelings for her, but my other self does. Which is why I expect this to go even faster than we initially thought. What do you think? Maybe a year till he asks her to marry him?"** the speedster chuckled. He knew himself pretty well and, for a moment tried to put himself in his double's shoes, realizing how much Kara would mean to him.

 **"A year? I sincerely doubt that. Kara was in love with you since she met you. She might have thought it was a crush, but I sincerely doubt it. We didn't really speak that much about it seeing that she thought she might offend me if she told me her real feelings about the person that was about to become my husband. For him, he has already gone through this. While indeed he fell for his Kara, the two are the same. Sure she's younger, but that doesn't really mean anything. She is just missing 2-3 years of experience that she would get anyway. She is still his Kara, which means the moment he realizes that, he will love her even more. I'm giving them 6 months, at the most"** Caitlin made a really good point.

 **"We shall see, I guess. I hope you`re right though. She deserves happiness and he has gone through hell"** Barry told her as Cisco interrupted them

 **"Talking amongst yourselves eh? Anything we should be informed about?"** the engineer asked with a smirk

 **"Nothing important. We were just discussing how close Barry and Kara became after we sent him to earth 38. They seemed really happy together"** Caitlin told the engineer.

 **"Yeah. I saw that too. I'm happy for them"** Bette interjected.

 **"What do you mean by "Barry and Kara"?"** Iris looked at them crooked.

 **"Cisco, mind taking this one? We already informed Joe of our new guest"** Barry chuckled.

 **"Sure, Bar"** Cisco started to explain what had happened and how badly the other Barry had it. How they found him and what he had done to modify the timeline. Everything took quite a while. That time was used however to finish decorating the giant tree and burn through about a quarter of their eggnog reserves. Barry didn't mind, he could whip up another batch instantly with his speed and Caitlin's ice powers.

 **"We should all get changed, it's almost time for the people to start arriving"** Bette looked at the watch and they all nodded moving to the respective rooms in which they had left their evening wear.

Barry and Caitlin came out as usual first. He had a dark blue suit on with the tie tack that held their symbols. She was wearing a dark red long dress with a medium cut in front showing just the tiniest amount of cleavage and a deep cut at the back to about halfway down her back. She had the necklace that had their symbols on as well with red heels that brought her to Barry's height. Joe and Eddie wore dark suits and Iris had a on a dark cyan dress. Cisco and Bette came after. Him in a suit and her in a bright red dress that she thought appropriate for the occasion. The first ones to arrive were Henry and Tina who excused themselves from not coming earlier to help because they were out looking for a tree. The next to arrive were Harry, Jesse and Wally who Cisco had made interdimensional extrapolators for so they could cross over any time they wanted. The people that were there didn't even flinch at the large portal opening and the people coming in they weren't even surprised anymore.

 **"Hey Harry. No more Mr. Plaster I see?"** Barry chuckled seeing the scientist sharply dressed.

 **"How did you know about that? Oh. Those two told you. Sorry if I missed the wedding, but it would have been annoying to lug a bed around"** He said with his usual snarky tone.

 **"Running with a bed at super speed? That would be fun. Provided Cisco can make a bed whose wheels manage to keep up with us"** Caitlin laughed.

 **"So what's with those two?"** Barry pointed at the two junior speedsters who were already mingling with the others. Jesse going to speak with Cisco and Wally with his sister.

 **"Eh. You know. Young love. They even decided to move in together"** Harry said with a bit of an annoyance in his voice.

 **"You fought them all the way didn't you?"** Barry chuckled.

 **"Of course I did. But then I realized how much they love each other. They remind me of you two when I first came to this earth. The moment that comparison was in my head I decided to just let it go. If they are half as happy together as you two were then I have no reason to interfere. I might be a jerk, but all I want is my daughter to be happy"** Harry explained to the two speedsters.

 **"Harry, you might have been a jerk, but after all we have been through you're part of the family too. That's why we asked where you were at our wedding. We kind of missed your sarcastic comments and remarks. You rarely drop in now that you three have stuff to do on earth 2"** Caitlin replied surprising the scientist.

 **"Why didn't you say that? We'll make some time and drop by in the future then"** He smiled. The two speedsters were taken aback by the candor of his statement, but took it at face value. The next breach that opened held the greatest surprise for the rest. Kara stepped out holding someone's hand. Some of the people were grinning, having been already told who the person was. The others like Iris or Eddie were stunned. Older Barry seemed like a clone of the younger one wearing the same kind of suit and Kara wearing a black dress to compliment her blonde curls with the necklace the couple had given her prior.

 **"Hey, Kara, Hey Barry. Welcome"** Caitlin smiled at the two new arrivals.

 **"Glad to be here, I see most of the people I know are around. A few new faces as well"** Older Barry commented. **"Dad, Eddie"** he nodded toward the persons he knew were dead, but in this timeline were very much alive.

 **"I see that you have already done everything for the party. You know you could have called us to help, right?"** Kara told the two speedsters

 **"We know. But we thought that you might want to do that in your own home first. You know, enjoy a little Christmas spirit together?"** Barry winked at her making her blush all shades of red while his older self-started to laugh.

 **"You two planned this since you sent me over there, didn't you?"** he managed to articulate through the laughs.

 **"Us? We didn't plan anything. How were we to know that Kara likes older men? You might have been rejected worse than at your first prom"** Caitlin smiled remembering what her Barry told her had happened and why he did not go to prom at all.

 **"Well he didn't. I'm happy you two did what you did and I thank you expressly for that. Since I never managed to put it into words, I was always busy with Mr. Menace over here"** Kara started to laugh using his other name and surprisingly he did too. The other people were looking at the duplicate Barry strangely.

 **"Barry, I suggest you start to talk to the people here, we managed to put a few into the loop about how we met you and what happened but not all of them. As you can see Iris and Eddie are still pretty confused and so are dad and Tina. We managed to tell Joe some things, just not everything. How about you go straight them out"** Caitlin smiled at him.

 **"While we're here we need some sort of way to tell them apart"** Kara realized that it would be hard to address one or the other or to call them over.

 **"How about Caitlin's Barry and Kara's Barry. That seems apt and pretty much true at this point"** Henry had listened in for a part of the conversation and was now offering his input.

 **"That seems fine even though they are a handful to say. Or you can call us Flash and Menace. That would be appropriate as well"** Older Barry commented **"I got a lot to talk about with you, dad. Mind grabbing Iris and Eddie too?"** Henry agreed and took the people that were mentioned including Tina and went to another side of the room and sat on the couch for story time. Kara joined them as well. The two speedsters saw that before, they would rarely be apart for anything anymore. A phone rang. Felicity was calling.

 **"Where have you been, you`re late!"** Caitlin replied with a stern voice then cracking into a chuckle.

 **"Well, we were running kind of late so … when I called Ray in they decided to give us a ride. Mind opening the door to the balcony?"** She asked.

 **"Why? Are you going to fly in?"** Barry replied coyly.

 **"No, not even your penthouse can accommodate the Wave Rider. But we would like to get off and join you"** She laughed. Barry and Caitlin went to the balcony and the rest of the people followed to see what the commotion was about. What they saw next left most of them with their jaws on the floor. The Wave Rider came down from the sky and hovered just outside their balcony. A door opened turning into stairs and Felicity and Sara came down.

 **"Are you guys nuts? Or do you want me to be asked by police as to why do I have strange UFO's letting people off in my balcony?"** Barry looked at Sara

 **"Not our fault. We used to be able to let the ship hover and cloak, but after Rip left something happened with Gideon that limited its processing capacity and we lost that advantage"** Sara replied as Oliver, Ray with Thea, Lyla, Diggle, Jax, Martin and Clarissa were coming down the stairs and into their balcony.

 **"Gideon?"** Barry said with a raised tone. A shape appeared in the balcony in front of him

 **"Hello Barry Allen. How may I help?"** the Ai politely asked.

 **"Tell me, what is the problem with multiple processes involving the cloak and the engines?"** Barry asked.

 **"After Captain Hunter left, part of the programming that the Time Masters put in to limit my processing power reactivated. With it came a directive that impedes me to actively try and crack that limitation"** The Ai responded bluntly.

 **"Is there any way you could remove them?"** Caitlin inquired.

 **"The only way that would be possible was if someone with higher access than that of the time masters would perform a master control override and ordered me to crack the synthetic shackling of my abilities"** Gideon told the two.

 **"You mean like … someone who has control access. To your core functions"** Barry made sure that he knew what was required.

 **"Yes"** The answer came.

 **"Gideon. Authorize user. Barry Allen. Release access to all administrative core management and control functions"** the speedster told the AI.

 **"Voiceprint acknowledged. Recognized Barry Allen. User authorized with access level: creator. Administrative core management and control functions access enabled. What is your command?"** The AI asked.

 **"Activate root level control Override. Fly to the roof and cloak. While we are here, start cracking and removing the added Code that the Time Masters have put it. Return to normal specifications without extraneous limiting directives. Reauthorize all users. After that has been done, fly down, remain in hover mode, cloak the Wave Rider and await further instructions"** The speedster told the AI.

 **"Understood"** the translucent figure disappeared and the Wave rider flew to the roof where it cloaked.

 **"What did you just do?"** Sara managed to speak while all the others will still shocked.

 **"Released Gideon to clean the AI matrix of all remainder Time Masters code. Basically a factory reset button. Now it will have increased control capabilities because of the boost in processing power. Look at it as unshackling the AI from the control of its previous owners"** Barry smiled. The rest of the people were still stunned seeing a mammoth of a ship that simply hovered so gently across the ground to let everyone get out of it safely. Caitlin saw this one before so she smiled toward Sara

 **"You will have a lot of explaining to do"**

 **"That's what I get for using the Wave Rider as a plane. I'll handle all the questions"** she smiled. **"How did you know how to do that?"**

 **"The last time that we were on the Wave Rider remember Gideon told me something about Core management and administrative control functions being enabled when he saw Caitlin and I. I thought I'd try since you have full control of the ship, but can't do anything about the AI"** Barry smiled brightly

 **"I can hardly wait to see what other bonuses the Wave Rider has now that Gideon will not be limited anymore"** Ray behaved like a kid in a candy store. The people went inside and the tirade of questions started from the ones that were already here. Kara out of all was the most surprised since the type of technology she managed to see on that ship was something that was so advanced that it rivaled things she had seen on Krypton. Of course she wanted to know more. Oliver and Felicity remained on the balcony while all the others went inside. It was pretty cold, Barry didn't mind and Caitlin didn't care since her powers made her immune to low temperature.

 **"Did you manage to find out more about that Prometheus character?"** Barry asked.

 **"Nothing. However we did manage to get a ping on Fields. Sadly he disappeared when we got there. It's like the guy teleports around"** Ollie said with a bit of annoyance on his face.

 **"I don't know. After we had to go back in time to protect our younger selves and found out that not only Eobard, but also Darhk were still alive and they had a tail in Malcolm Merlyn we initially thought about the fact that they might be behind all of this. If you want more data on that I suggest you go speak to your ex, Oliver. She can tell you what you want to know about those three"** Barry told his friend.

 **"I will. Maybe she can offer us some information about them that will not shatter the timeline"** He replied. **"I see that the other you is here as well"** he smiled.

 **"Of course. They did help us a bunch when you were in trouble, we already regarded Kara as family since before that. Of course we would invite them"** Caitlin replied.

 **"How about we go inside. Unlike the Maiden of Ice I still have blood in my veins and my ass is already almost frozen. God damn this dress"** Felicity quipped.

 **"Hey. Don't be rude. I'm still human you know. I have feelings"** Caitlin replied with a serious face, that almost made Felicity want to apologize, but the grin that appeared after stopped her in her tracks. It was obvious that she was making fun of the blonde. They went back inside and joined the party.

Everyone wanted to get acquainted with the new arrivals. Even more of them wanted to know about the time ship, which Sara made a big mistake in mentioning having that capability in the first place. It was easier to believe that it was some alien technology that only they had access about, but an actual ship that can travel through time. Caitlin started to smirk immediately when the Dr. Who references started popping up, especially from Cisco and the other Barry which was as much of a nerd as the younger version.

Older Barry sat down with Henry, Tina, Joe, Iris and Eddie and told them about his life. Kara was there holding his hand all the time, it was obvious the memories were still a bit painful, but so was the fact that her being there made that go away. Martin and Clarissa instantly started to chat with the other Harrison Wells about the time ship that had just deposited everyone in the penthouse, exchanging theories about how it would function. Sara talked a lot with Oliver and Felicity, their previous relationship seemingly lost, but not forgotten. Ray and Thea discussed quite a lot with the two junior speedsters about the difference in the earths they were from. Everyone has someone to talk to. The whole living room had turned into a massive discussion hall. The people catching up with the exploits of the speedsters via stories from other people but also with the exploits of the newly dubbed _"time cops"._

 **"Hey, since we will have to get our presents sooner or later. I thought you should have yours early"** Caitlin told Barry and handed him a simple envelope with a heart shaped seal.

 **"Here I was thinking how I'm going to give you your present early too"** Barry smiled pulling out an envelope of his own and handing it to her.

 **"Both at the same time?"** She asked and he nodded. His present was a card. The text however was funny enough to make Barry chuckle _"I'm very sorry, but your present is on a back order. Baby Allen's Estimated due date for delivery, June 2017"_ Caitlin didn't check his reaction and opened her own envelope. In it there was a certification paper, which stated that Barry Allen MD, was now a certified Obstetrics and Gynecology specialist with a seal from the university of Star City.

 **"So you knew"** She looked at him with a large smile

 **"Of course I did. It wasn't hard to put the symptoms together. That's why I started studying, all those books you saw me read and I kept them away from you so you didn't see what I was doing, was for this exact reason. I was actually studying for exams. I had a friend who managed to give me all the materials to study and scheduled my late exam. I know how shy you are so I thought why go to an OBGYN when I can do that at home"** Barry smiled at her brightly

 **"I thought I was giving you a surprise, but instead you managed, as always to make me a bigger surprise. Thank you for thinking about me, you are right I don't think I would still be comfortable enough to go to a regular OBGYN"** Caitlin replied Looking at him with her beautiful eyes where a tear almost appeared.

 **"Don't think you didn't make your point. You have no idea how happy I am to have a child with you. Sure, from a geneticist's point of view it's just a random combination of our genetic codes"** she started to laugh remembering something she said a while back, which surprisingly he remembered " **But it's a part of you and me. Our family, Cait. I think I couldn't sleep well for three days when I put everything together. I was … well flying you could say. You remember when, since you asked me about it"**

 **"Wow, Henry was right, I was so dense. I only did the test two days ago, you had that happy about almost two weeks back"** She remembered. **"How could you have known that much in advance? I'm carrying and I didn't know"**

 **"Oh I'm sure you knew, you just chose to ignore it somewhere deep in your mind. I didn't know per say. I was happy at the possibility. I thought you could have a stomach bug, like you told me but as the puking became more and more prevalent and with higher occurrence rates I started to be sure. I was pretty sure that you cooked up this party to tell me and the others about the child too"** Barry looked at her and kissed her lips holding her tightly to him. The others looked at them rather surprised as to where that came from.

 **"I love you, Barry. This child is something I always wanted and now it's a reality. You can feel for yourself how happy this makes me. Of course nobody likes morning sickness, but I don't care. This is our little baby, growing in here"** she replied while was responding to her kiss. Because their link was now so clear the feeling they both experiences mingled with one another creating an ever expanding bubble of happiness and love that one person could never feel. Barry realized that Henry, Cisco and Bette weren't as surprised as everyone else.

 **"I love you so much, Caitlin. I'm so happy for this child. Our child, the first piece in our growing family. Just to be clear, my dad, Cisco and Bette already know huh?"** he asked with a comical tone in her mind

 **"I had to tell someone to get rid of all that happiness or else this surprise wouldn't have worked. Seeing how you already knew, it was no longer a surprise. I guess we should tell the others shouldn't we?"** she responded breaking the kiss and grabbing a glass of wine from the table. He looked really strange at that to which she responded **"No worries, not going to drink it. Just for the whole ritual and stuff"**

 **"What are you two smiling about over there? Besides not letting us in on your conversations, but that's already normal"** Kara pitched in.

 **"Barry got a new specialty. Obstetrics and Gynecology. He managed to hide from me the fact that for the last two weeks he was studying to get this. I thought he was reading mystery books"** Caitlin started to laugh.

 **"Why would you even do that, Bar.? Don't you have enough information in that big brain of yours?"** Joe asked rather surprised. However, Felicity, Kara, the other Barry and Oliver realized immediately why, but kept quiet.

 **"Yeah. Good question, Barry. You could always ask Henry for stuff like that, since he already has that specialty"** Tina smiled.

 **"I thought since my wife has been my own personal physician for such a long while, I should return the favor. She will definitely need my expertise in the months to come"** Barry chimed in with a voice that oozed happiness. Everyone's faces fell, they gave strange looks toward the couple and then you could see how their minds started to click one after the other as their faces changed.

 **"You`re having a baby!"** Felicity almost yelled. The two speedsters nodded **"That is amazing. Congratulations"**

 **"I see you two got it down in the getting naughty department"** Kara smirked at the two making them blush all the way to their ears **"I'm going to be an aunt! Actually if I think about it, most of the people here are going to be aunts and uncles"** she said with her usual cheery voice.

 **"A new member in the family. Well this wasn't a surprise I was expecting for Christmas"** Joe commented from the other side of the room. His face was full of joy and the wide smile he had on his face said everything. He was going to enjoy the hell out of being a grandfather. Barry saw this and quickly added

 **"Don't be so happy Joe. I'm going to see how well your old bones work when you have to keep up with a speedster baby"** Barry saw his adoptive father's face fall and started to laugh.

 **"So you two expect the child to have powers"** Older Barry chimed in

 **"Considering we both have altered DNA, I would say that is a large possibility"** Caitlin replied to which Barry continued.

 **"While in genetics nothing is 100% sure, the possibility is quite high, since the majority of our genes, at least the ones that are defining our respective powers seem to be dominant"**

 **"I keep forgetting you two have the same degrees"** Henry joked looking rather surprised at Barry who continued her words. Everyone congratulated them on the new life they were about to bring in the world. Something that was strange to them, but also made them happy beyond belief was that everyone treated their unborn child like they were his aunts and uncles. Even people like Thea and Sara who did not have as much contact with the rest of the family were acting the same. The engineer starting to ramble about the suit that he was going to make for the small one and Bette telling him to put a break on it for now since the poor thing wasn't even born yet. Even if they did know in advance, it was obvious Cisco had been thinking about it ever since. Barry picked up some wine and hit it to make some noise.

 **"I hope this will become an annual event. Most of the people here know that for me Christmas is a time to be with your family and friends. That is what you are, family and friends. I am happy you could all turn up and happier still to have brought you the news that had me have insomnia and walk on clouds the last week."** Barry started.

 **"Hope no longer. As long as you will be hosting these parties we will be there. It's good that we can gather like this outside of trouble and problems and just enjoy ourselves with the people we are close with and the ones we love. Cheers"** Oliver lifted his glass.

 **"To family and friends. People that are always there when you need them"** Caitlin raised her glass.

 **"To baby Allen, a cause of joy in such a wonderful time of the year"** Tina replied.

 **"To friends, family and a new life"** Older Barry raised his glass.

 **"To Family and to friends. People you can always count on"** A chorus of voice said completing the toast. Caitlin and Barry could see it on their faces. They were all happy to be receiving a new member of this extended family.

As the toasting stopped all the speedsters got to work and cleared the center of the room as they started to dance. Caitlin almost instantly finished 7 of the dozen boxes which Kara and Older Barry had brought from their earth, which were stacked neatly on the kitchen counter.

 **"Now you`re definitely going to get fat"** Barry commented toward his wife.

 **"And now I don't really care. This is the only type of fat I always wanted to be** " She replied with a glint in her eyes.

The Party continued and lasted way into the night, but everyone was not tired. They kept dancing and telling jokes and enjoying themselves. This was a joyous time indeed and everyone had a part in it. They said jokes and played party games, they grabbed some snow and made a snowman in the balcony which looked like he had a mental problem because the eyes were put too far apart and they drank. All around good fun for the whole family something that the two Allens wanted all along. Everything finished around 5 Am and everyone started to go home as usual. The other passengers got into the Wave Rider to leave for Star City. The Ai purge had been successful and the ship was hovering and cloaked at the edge of their balcony. Sara was really happy about that and was grateful that Barry managed to fix Gideon. The speedsters and Kara took everyone from the city home and then left for their respective worlds after helping the two clean up the penthouse which took all of 10 seconds. The two stepped out the balcony and looked at the moon which was low in the sky

 **"You do look like a goddess in the light of the moon. The goddess of life"** Barry smiled at his wife caressing her belly. She blushed furiously, even after all this time his compliments got to her rather hard. She pulled him into a passionate kiss while the clouds above were letting snow slowly fall to the ground.

 **"I love you, Barry Allen"** she thought

 **"I love you, Caitlin Allen"** he replied while deepening the kiss they both shared as the light of the moon was shining above them through the large snowflakes that were falling slowly.

* * *

AN : I created a poll on my profile page, when you have time go have a gander and take a vote if you're interested in a spin off story for Menace and Kara.


	53. Aftereffect

Barry took his word seriously. Ever since Caitlin told him she was pregnant at Christmas he took the doctors job in his very capable hands, making sure that Caitlin and his child were all right. After an initial series of tests and something that came a bit after, Barry already discovered some interesting aspects of the pregnancy. While he was running more tests he decided to share what he knew with his wife that was resting on the bed.

 **"When you first did the pregnancy tests, you said my dad estimated you to be at around two months?"** he asked

 **"Yeah, that would be what he said. Since he has already that expertise I assumed it to be right. Why?"** the response came while she inevitably was speeding toward the bathroom

 **"Because by the rate of growth I'm seeing, you were more like one month pregnant if not less. I think our thoughts about this baby having powers were correct though"** Barry replied moving over to another batch of tests.

 **"How can you be so sure, you can't test his cells yet? Is it just a supposition?"** she asked while trying to control her nausea from provoking another puking session

 **"Not a supposition. You did realize that ever since Christmas you`ve started to eat the equivalent food for me and you. Even though about a fifth of that you just puke"** the speedster's tone was quite convincing

 **"I did notice that yea. Usually 6-7 pizzas and some donuts would be enough, but right now I'm eating like I'm always hungry"** the reply came

 **"I know why that is. The child's development rate is accelerated. By what my figures turn up, somewhere between 200 and 300%"** Barry told her quite openly

 **"So wait, instead of 9 months, I might be pregnant just for 3 to 4 months and a half? Well I don't care about the time I'm fat, but is this in any way dangerous for the baby?"** she replied and he could feel her worry about their child

 **"Not as far as I can see. As long as you give the fetus enough nutrients it will continue the growth process at a stable rate. I do suspect however that suppressing your ice powers might increase the rate of growth even more"** the speedster made an assumption

 **"You think the baby is feeding off my Speed Force energy as well as my caloric intake, don't you? If that's so then suppressing my ice powers will stop the constant drain and it would be logical that the pregnancy is accelerated by a factor related to how much my ice powers actually drain from my system"** Caitlin replied slowly moving back to the Cortex after she washed herself.

 **"Something like that, yea. This is just based on the initial two tests. In another week or two I should know more. If this is indeed the case then you should start growing somewhere in the next month. If the cycle holds true then in that time period you should go through month, 3, 4 and 5 of the normal development of the baby which means you are going to start showing"** Barry replied.

 **"Ugh, my Frost costume is not going to fit anymore"** She said with a frown while coming next to him to read over what he did.

 **"It won't matter, because you won't be going out until this baby is delivered"** Barry told her quite sternly

 **"Why not? It's not like I can't turn impenetrable or anything, the child isn't in any danger even if I am out there as long as I don't get kicked in the stomach"** she said with a surprised look

 **"Oh that's not even an issue. I know for a fact that you can probably take care of yourself even better than I am. The problem is we don't know what sort of drain the child is putting on your body. You might just crash again, or something might happen if you use too much energy. I would much rather we don't find out"** Barry told her with a stern look on his face.

 **"How about we try it on the treadmill then. You can monitor my blood sugar and everything and we see if it affects the child. I'm not being stubborn, Barry, but as much as I want to have this child I don't want to leave my partner alone out there. I want to be with you up to the point where we know it's safe. I hope you understand and not give me a hard time about this"** She told him with an almost begging look.

 **"You`re going to get bored here, aren't you?"** he looked at her and gave her a large smile.

 **"Terribly"** she replied. She loved the way Barry could read into her reasons and sometimes surprised her with being surprisingly blunt about what she thought.

 **"I really don't know what to say, Cait. My OBGYN specialty doesn't mention anything about speedster babies. For all we know even flashing might have a negative effect on the child. With all that said, we'll test things in the weeks to come and see if you need to be benched or not. If there is no danger to the baby then I have no problem with Frost putting on a girdle and coming out there with me. Ok?"** Barry started to laugh at the image he had in his head.

 **"Of course. It goes without saying that if we find something wrong or that might endanger the child then everything stops"** Caitlin told her husband

 **"They we will have these treadmill tests weekly, since the baby's development is accelerated. If by any chance we find something damaging to the child from then forward, you're benched"** Barry told her with a stern voice.

 **"Deal. I want something else part of the deal though"** She told him prompting a quizzical look from the speedster **"As long as we're together, you can always risk more because you know you have backup. I can help and also can get you back here if you`re severely injured. From the moment that I have to bench myself so that the child doesn't have issues, you, my dear Barry, will start taking care of yourself and make damn sure that you come home. This child needs a father as much as it needs a mother. Understand me, mister?"** Her expression was final and Barry understood very well what that meant.

 **"That comes without saying, Cait. I want to be here for this child. I'll be extra careful, when and if you get benched"** He replied. **"Just out of curiosity, how is Frost going to explain the fact that she has a baby bump?"**

 **"Simple. She is not going to. I don't plan to be around enough for tabloids and papers to see how I look. While you can always stop and give interviews if you so desire I won't stop enough for them to see me. I would rather avoid the publicity and the fact that since Caitlin Allen is a public figure, they might tie the two personas together"** she answered quite swiftly.

 **"That would be bad"** Barry replied. **"Come on. Let's get some treadmill time then. The faster we get done with that the faster you can come out there with me if something arises"** She nodded and they both flashed to the treadmill room where Caitlin started to exercise. Barry was keeping an eye on her power consumption and sugar level as usual. What he found out was not surprising. Because of the pregnancy her body needed more energy. They did a comparative test after she was almost depleted and her sugar level was dangerously low. She ran for about 2 hours until she was mostly spent, while he ran about 4 and a half. It was obvious she needed at least one and a half time the calories to be able to run as much as him. If she wanted to use her ice powers that number which they both calculated climbed to double his requirement. It was physically impossible for a human to eat that much in a day.

 **"Well that settles that. I think you can come out with me without a problem for short sorties, but to sustain a longer battle you don't have enough stomach space to eat the caloric requirement"** Barry said with a surprised face.

 **"I guess you`re right"** Caitlin was sad, the speedster could see it on her face. The fact that her own body could not keep up with the caloric intake that she needed was annoying **"I should take it easy then"** Barry hated to see that look on her face. She went back to the Cortex and seeing that she was nearly depleted, he went out and bought a mountain of food with some sweet donuts on top. That made her feel a bit better, but the speedster had something else in mind. Bette had come in so she left the two women to talk and he flashed to Cisco's lab. The engineer was fiddling with his glasses.

 **"Cisco, we have a problem"** he spoke.

 **"What happened? Is Caitlin Ok? Is the baby ok?"** he looked at Barry instantly with worry on his face.

 **"They`re both fine. The problem is another thing. The baby is sapping Caitlin's energy. She needs to consume twice as much food as me to keep up with the speed I put out at the same time. The problem is she can't eat that much every day, our stomachs barely cope with the amount of food we eat now, which means until she gives birth she can't really come out with me"** the speedster spoke with a sad face.

 **"That's shit. I suspect the bars that I make are so fowl that the taste makes her puke anyway, doesn't it?"** Cisco inquired

 **"Yeah. I tried to give her one, but not even a bite in she was running for the toilet. Which is why I came here. Think we can put our heads together to actually make them eatable?"** Barry asked his friend.

 **"Unless you plan to remove the taste from everything that goes in and just put on flavor in them, I don't think you can. That's why they taste so bad, all the flavors of everything I put in them combine to taste like you know"** the engineer said a bit saddened himself by the development.

 **"What if we make them larger, but only use ingredients that taste well. So they have the same amount of calories and not the crappy taste. After that we can put something in them with a nice flavor and since she is still pregnant and has nausea maybe we can add some anti-nausea medicine to them that won't spoil the end product."** Barry told him

 **"Let's try. This is what I use for the bars that I make now"** Cisco handed him a list. He recognized the things that tasted like crap instantly. He got to a terminal and started researching what to put instead of those that would yield similar results. Two hours passed and Barry managed to find neutral taste replacements that only made the bar bigger by about 20 % for the same caloric intake.

 **"This should do. By what you calculated here and including my own calculations, the bars should provide an extra 5000 calories per intake. From the medical experience I have seems Metoclopramide is the best anti-nausea medicine that a pregnant woman can take that will not affect the baby. The medicine in itself is foul and quite bitter, but I know of a way to remove that. You will have to make two sets however, one for me and one for her. Just color code them or something, red wrappers for me blue for her. I don't need the anti-nausea medicine and there's no point in putting drugs into your body, if you don't need them"** Barry showed the engineer what he was talking about.

 **"I see where you're going, if she eats them twice a day, the nausea medicine should keep her puking in check and the bar itself will give her enough energy without needing to stuff herself like a pig"** The engineer quipped **"I can make these no problem, I need you to get me chocolate flavoring, but if this fabrication process is accurate I can have a batch ready by the end of the day"**

 **"Precisely. Her morning sickness might stop or it might not. We'll deal with taking that medicine out if we get to that point. I'll get you the flavoring, make a batch for her first. I can conserve my energy, but I don't want that droopy face I saw on her when I told her she can't eat enough"** Barry replied.

 **"You'd blow up the moon, if it would make her happy wouldn't you?"** Cisco gave him a bright smile

 **"I would. But in such a way that we don't all get killed by the gravitational backlash. There's no point in making her happy if she dies 2 days later"** the speedster gave him a grin and was gone. Three minutes later he came back with the flavoring and went back to the cortex to check on his wife. Bette had been keeping her busy with questions about names, what sex would the child have and other stuff. Caitlin was trying to keep up with the bomb expert who kept showering her with more and more questions as the time went by.

 **"Hello, ladies"** he quipped as he sat next to Caitlin

 **"Barry Allen, where were you? You left me alone to answer all these questions that I don't have any answer to"** Caitlin chuckled pointing at Bette

 **"I had to run something by Cisco and then just walked around thinking"** the speedster told her

 **"What were you thinking about?"** She asked

 **"Trying to find a way to solve your food shortage issue. We already know those bars that Cisco makes don't really work since you puked them instantly, so I was searching for ideas in my mind and I guess I didn't realize how fast the time passed by me"** Barry replied seemingly lost In thought

 **"Did you come up with something?"** the question came.

 **"I might have, that's why I had to run something by Cisco. We'll see tomorrow if I was right or not"** Barry replied. Caitlin's face instantly lit up and smiled.

 **"That is seriously something freaky. I mean the child needs the same amount of calories you do while you run? That's … immense"** Bette replied from the other side of the table

 **"Apparently so. We're in unknown water with everything that's happening. For now, if Caitlin wants to use her powers then yes, the caloric requirement just doubled for her. Which explains why the baby is growing so fast. I'm pretty sure it will have the speed force in his system as well. This is by far a normal pregnancy"** Barry explained.

 **"You can say that again. Had no expectation at a normal pregnancy because of us being speedsters, but 3 months to 4.5 months total carry time. Yeah, you can say that was a total surprise"** Caitlin replied.

The day was coming to an end and Caitlin was still tired after the treadmill run so Barry decided to just go home and rest. He did his best of making her comfortable while watching TV but after about 30 minutes she was already out like a light. He was happy that she didn't continue puking, that sometimes woke her up and made her nights annoying. He took her to be and went to sleep as well only to wake up the next morning rather early. He found a text on his phone from Cisco, from around 3 AM _"First batch is ready, see if the work and if everything is ok I can set something up for automated production so I don't have to be there to keep an eye on them"_ The speedster smiled and raced to the labs and got two of the bars and returned home. He started to cook a large breakfast for his wife that was still sleeping. He made a ton of pancakes and two large omelets. Coffee was on the table as usual and it took about 10 minutes for a sleepy Caitlin rubbing her eyes to appear in the hallway. She came down slowly down the stairs and her face lit up.

 **"Good morning, beautiful. How did you sleep?"** Barry quipped

 **"Good morning, handsome. I slept all right. I fell asleep at the TV last night didn't I?"** she smiled

 **"Yes you did. Before you eat, I have something for you"** he opened his hand and showed her one of the bars. She looked at it rather strange.

 **"Barry, you know I can't eat that. Do you want me to go puke my guts out?"** she looked at him rather crooked.

 **"Do you trust me?"** he asked simply. Caitlin nodded and took the bar. She took a bite out of it and her face turned to a smile **"I told you I had something in mind."**

 **"This actually tastes pretty good. Reminds me of that bar we had for speedsters on the Wave Rider. There is something a bit bitter in the chocolate taste though"** she managed to say something.

 **"I know. I saw you starting to puke more and more so I had Cisco add some nausea medicine to the bars. I looked at the dosages, everything sticks and it's safe for the baby. If I'm right you should not have morning sickness as long as you eat at regular intervals. They are the equivalent of 5000 calories each which means you need to eat two of them per day whenever you come out with me to keep up with your caloric intake. I'm pretty sure you can eat two of these little things and not have any issues. You do have to remember to eat them, if you want the anti-nausea effect to be kept up and if you have enough energy we can always go out for a run, just like old times. That's about it"** Barry replied smiling. Caitlin was shocked. Barry took care of her problem in a day. The fact that she had to eat so much that it wasn't possible for a human to keep up with the caloric intake required for her to go out with him was now a non-issue.

 **"So you did this for me, basically. Just so I could go out with you"** she looked at him. The hormones were definitely present, she jumped at him and kissed him hard starting to cry and thanking him in her mind for what he had done. Barry waited for her to calm down before speaking.

 **"Of course I did it for you. I don't want to ever see that washed up sad face that you had yesterday when you thought you couldn't go out with me. Cait, I have told you before, I will do my best so that you can be happy, besides this didn't even take that long. You should go thank Cisco as well, he contributed a lot to this design, since the original bars were fabricated by him these are by extension just modifications made specifically for you and your condition"** the speedster smiled at his wife who calmed down and after eating a bar started to gulp down the food that he had just finished making. Barry just stood there and looked at her smiling. It was the most beautiful thing in the world that he could think of at the moment. His wife, that was carrying his child, eating like there was no tomorrow.

 **"Is my makeup on wrong? Oh wait I'm not wearing any"** she looked at him as he was staring.

 **"You rarely wear makeup. No just looking at my beautiful wife, is that a crime nowadays?"** He replied.

 **"No, just thought there was something wrong with me. You were staring quite intently"** she replied as she stuffed her face with some pancakes.

 **"There is nothing wrong with you, Cait. You are perfect"** He told her and she smiled widely and began to blush. It wasn't anything that it was really strange to them. Even after all this time, the compliments that he gave her still made her giddy and gave her butterflies in her stomach. Before they finished eating a call from Cisco came through.

 **"I hope you two are awake, we have a problem"** the engineer replied

 **"What problem?"** Caitlin asked finished to eat and putting some clothes on.

 **"Some guy is trying to rob the Central City Bank. You should go and take care of that"** the engineer smiled

 **"Oh well, a little robbery. Who would have thought that is what we'll be facing"** Barry smiled, the two jumped into their suits and were gone. They arrived at the bank, they saw the criminal but before they could get to him he started to create a bubble around himself that was extending. Caitlin stepped aside but Barry got caught in it appearing like he was standing still. The person however had no problem in actually moving in that slowed time and started to nonchalantly get more money out of the cash register while smirking at the Flash who even with his speed he could barely move.

 ** _"Cait, this guy can slow time around him. Don't enter the bubble. Is there anything you can do from out there?"_** he asked her.

 ** _"I can try, but I doubt it"_** She threw a couple of ice spears at the person but as soon as they hit the bubble they just stopped in midair. Frost beams weren't doing anything either being completely put to a stop at the edge of the field. **_"Nothing I throw at him works. Can you move?"_**

 ** _"I can but it's like the flow of time has been slowed down to a crawl, my body can barely move although my mind seems to be intact, for now"_** the answer came.

 ** _"This is a problem. I don't want to enter that field because I'll probably be stuck the same as you are, but I can't do anything from the outside either"_** she said with a frustrated tone in her mind.

 ** _"Let me try something"_** Barry started to vibrate faster and faster until he started to phase. He turned into a blur and in an instant was near his wife **_"So his abilities work on something solid, phasing works to move through the field, but being phased means I can't touch him"_**

 ** _"Can you partially solidify and punch him? I never tried that and I don't think I should either, being pregnant and all"_** Caitlin replied.

 ** _"I have never tried that, you`re right. Let's see if it works"_** Barry restarted to vibrate and moved through the field at high speed his hand materializing for an instant and hit the guy straight in the face making him drop the money and getting him to fly all the way outside the bank. He was stunned, The Flash had managed to break through his slow field and actually punch him. He decided it was better to run away before he was knocked out extending his field out and freezing the cops in front of the bank while he did so. Inside, Barry was on the floor with his hand mangled completely the bones were broken and his fingers looked like they had been through a crushing machine. He was holding it and sweating profusely from the pain.

 ** _"Barry, are you all right?"_** Caitlin asked and then saw his hand **_"Damn. Come on I need to set that before it starts healing like it is. We don't want to keep breaking it"_** the two started to run toward STAR Labs where Cisco was waiting for them.

 **"It worked, Cait. The problem is the molecules that phased out for me to actually be able to hit him were almost stuck and the others were vibrating. That's why this happened"** Barry told her while they ran. As they got into STAR Cisco so his hand.

 **"What the hell happened out there?"** he asked as Barry sat on a bed and Caitlin started to put his bones back together. She flashed out and came back with a brace for the fingers. The damage looked pretty bad.

 **"The guy wasn't just a normal person. He could produce some sort of slow field around himself. I ran at full speed into it and I stopped. Cait can attest to that. Even at the speed I was moving, in that bubble it felt like I was standing still"** Barry told him between winces. The pain was something he was used to but at the moment it was something that he could barely control without biting into something.

 **"What do you mean, you stopped? The Flash? The man who can run at Mach 10 and see the world around him in slow motion… stopped?"** Cisco said with an incredulous face.

 **"Yes, Cisco. That is precisely what he is saying. I even threw a few ice spears at him for good measure. Those stopped in the air as they went into that bubble he was creating"** Caitlin told him.

 **"Wow, that's… sick. You were stopped in time almost like a turtle"** Cisco smiled **"That's what we're calling him. No discussions"**

 **"I don't know how that worked, it seemed to work for solid matter, when I phased I got out quite easily. I went back phased to punch him and it worked, but my hand ended up like you see it now and he escaped"** Barry continued wincing and grinding his teeth at the pain, while Caitlin was taking X rays to see how bad the damage was.

 **"Now that is something really interesting. Can any of you tell me more?"** The engineer went out and looked at the readouts from his suit at the console.

 **"Nothing more I'm afraid. Cait stayed out of the bubble and I got trapped in it"** He let out a few grunts. Caitlin, knew it had to hurt, badly, but he had it under control for the most part. She worked at super speed and he had his hand back in the correct form 5 minutes later and it was put in a supportive brace that kept his fingers realigned.

 **"This is interesting. Barry, the suit picked up the fact that there was a total absence of kinetic energy in that bubble. It was all transformed into potential energy, even the nanites in the suit couldn't move but their energy reserves were increased 10 fold"** the engineer replied.

 **"Which explains why he couldn't move. Absence of kinetic energy means no movement. In short, this guy can stop anyone or anything he wants if he extends that bubble"** Caitlin replied.

 **"That begs the question. If we can't get to him, how can we stop him? It's not like I can break my hand every time I need to punch him, even I have a limit on that front"** Barry replied while his wife put his hand in an arm rest on his chest.

 **"You should be healed in a few hours. Make sure you don't move the fingers and let the support do its job"** Caitlin smiled.

 **"Thank you, Cait"** He replied kissing her cheek.

 **"I have never met anything that has such an effect of turning kinetic energy into potential energy. I don't even know if we can counter something like that. Everything that moves is susceptible to that field. Including your heartbeats, Barry was lucky as luck would have it not to die in there"** Cisco told them with a very worried look on his face.

 **"Ah. I see you met Mr. Slow"** the three were greeted by a familiar face. Harry came for a visit from Earth two. Alone as it would seem because the two junior speedsters were not with him.

 **"I kind of named him Turtle already, but thank you for that, Harry"** Cisco replied with his obvious smirk.

 **"Welcome, Harry. I see you took our invite in earnest and dropped by. Nice to see you again"** Caitlin smiled at the doctor.

 **"It was kind of boring on my earth, the two kids living together and taking care of crime, I wanted to go back to science and discover new things, but I missed the excitement and the urgency a real threat brings. So I dropped by to see if you have a villain to take care of. Apparently I'm lucky"** Harry replied with his usual snarkyness.

 **"So what can you tell us about this guy?"** Barry asked sitting on a chair with Caitlin right beside him.

 **"From what I heard, nothing you don't already know, with one exception. You were right in assuming that the field nullifies kinetic energy. Which is surprising because as far as I remember, my flash couldn't even phase out of his bubble. Of course he was much slower than you two as you might remember"** the scientist told them **"This Turtle of yours must have the same ability as my metahuman"**

 **"Did you ever manage to catch him?"** Caitlin inquired.

 **"We did. But somehow Jay Garrick got a sample of his cells and we were able to make a counter agent that when injected into his body would stop his power. Something that was made using the Flash's cells with speed and his slowing power cancelled each other out. I don't suppose you have any sort of evidence from this guy or maybe a cell sample anywhere?"** Harry replied swiftly.

 **"No, we don't, that's the problem. I don't even know how to get one. The moment I hit that field I'm completely immobile and the only way I can hit him is if I phase and then de phase my fist long enough for all the energy to pass into him creating a sort of shock that last time sent him flying."** Barry explained to him what he had done to get the guy's attention.

 **"Did you try throwing lightning bolts at him?"** the scientist inquired instantly

 **"No, that is indeed something we haven't tried. Why would it matter?"** Caitlin looked crooked at Harry.

 **"Because lightning is plasma. Something like that might have an effect on him and it might not be affected by his kinetic drain. I would try that next time you meet this guy. If that doesn't work, Cisco and I can probably whip you up something that can shoot plasma bursts at the guy"** Harry told them nonchalantly" The problem is if your lightning doesn't work, then probably what we build for you won't work either, so it's better to test it first"

 **"Cisco, you try to get an Id of that guy. We have footage from the banks security cameras, maybe he has some sort of pet peeve. Something that will draw him out so we can catch him. I doubt now that we showed him we can actually hurt him, he will want to show his face anywhere in the city without a good reason. He seemed pretty annoyed that we could get through his bubble"** Barry told his friend who immediately began working at the consoles. Caitlin's stomach was growling. The speedster smiled at his wife.

 **"Harry, want to get some food?"** he asked.

 **"No, I'm fine, you two go ahead. We'll call you if we get anything"** the scientist smiled and went to help Cisco. The two flashed out to go to Big Belly Burger for a bite.

 **"Thanks for thinking about my puking issues, since I ate the bar this morning I didn't need to run to the bathroom once and I ate quite a lot for breakfast"** Caitlin smiled at her husband while they were running

 **"No sweat, Cait. You're very welcome. I know being pregnant can be a pain in the ass. You might like carrying our child, but the puking is not something that I see you loving"** Barry replied.

 **"No. I don't enjoy that. Nor the chest pains, the swollen ankles or the mood swings. But I don't care, I know they are what they are. Nothing I can do about them and I want this child. Which means I will bear with them until they go away."** She told him

 **"I know you will. You want this child as much as I do. You will bear with them and I will be with you every step of the way"** Barry gave her one of his patented goofy grins. She remembered the first time she had seen them and how warm and carefree they made her feel, like everything was right in the world.


	54. Evolution

Another week passed and the Turtle didn't show himself. They wanted to get at least a sample of his cells so they could make a counter agent for his abilities that would work 100% but that didn't seem to work. The two speedsters were in the treadmill room, Barry keeping an eye on his wife who ran.

 **"Your energy consumption seems to be fine, Cait. As long as you keep eating two of those bars a day and regular food you should be able to sustain the required caloric intake for you and the baby"** Barry told her as she slowed to a stop smiling.

 **"Wonderful, means that I can still go out there with you"**

 **"Yes. I'm not going to give you a complete exam every week, because I don't see the point. Even with the accelerated growth of the baby once every two or so weeks is more than enough"** the speedster replied.

 **"There is one more thing we don't have any sort of idea about"** She looked at him while they were both walking through.

 **"What would that be, sweetie?"** Barry asked with a sweet voice making her blush

 **"Does the fact that the child will more than likely have powers means that I might be affected as well"** she replied and he understood what she was talking about.

 **"Can't answer that either, Cait. I guess we just wait and see. However you can try to use your powers out of battle once in a while and see if there is something that changes"** Barry told her. **"That's why we made the training room. We can try it now if you want. I don't see anything that requires our attention just yet"**

 **"Not really in the mood for it. I'm hungry"** she pouted to which Barry flashed out and came back with pizza. She had been eating the power bars religiously and to her great satisfaction they had been keeping the nausea away quite well without affecting the child.

 **"Food is served"** he smiled while she started to eat. **"Did you start looking at clothes for pregnant women yet?"**

 **"No, why would I? I'm not even showing anything yet"** she responded while finishing to chew the pizza she had in her mouth

 **"Cait, I don't know when you'll start showing, but it will be quite soon. I suggest you take Bette and go shopping. If you don't have anything to wear you won't be able to get out of the house and as well as I know your measurements I don't know in what you would feel comfortable. Please do that now while you still can"** Barry told her with a serious face.

 **"All right. I'll go to the precinct and talk to Bette see if she has some time off and I'm going shopping. What are you going to do?"** she asked.

 **"I was thinking of talking to Cisco. See if he can modify your suit to be more elastic so that you don't have a problem getting into it later and it doesn't restrain your movement"** he replied quite nonchalantly

 **"That actually seems like a good idea"** She finished eating **"All right. I'm gone. I'll be back when everything is finished. Are you sure you don't want to come with me?"**

 **"Unless you really want me to, I will have to decline. You know me, Cait, I'm just like you, I don't really enjoy shopping and my patience runs out quite fast. I'm better off being here and working with Cisco on ideas on how to make the Frost suit more comfortable"** he replied with a smile.

 **"All right. See you later"** she kissed him and flashed out of the building. While Cisco came to the cortex. Barry wanted to say something to him but his phone rang. It was the other him.

 **"Hey"** he spoke

 **"Hey, Barry. I'm glad you answered and not your wife."** A sigh could be heard from the other side of the line.

 **"Why would it be any different if she answered?"** Barry asked quite surprised

 **"Well, because what I wanted to talk to you is … private. I don't know if Caitlin won't somehow spill to Kara what I want to do so … you know"** Menace told his double.

 **"I see. I don't think Cait would say anything if you asked her not to. Especially if it's a surprise of something you`re planning. Still, I'm alone for now. What's up?"** the speedster replied to his older self.

 **"It's rather simple. I kind of know you`re loaded so … long story short, I want to ask for a loan"** Menace's words were a bit muttered

 **"Oh. Well I have no idea how that would work. The money as far as I've seen is not the same. Unless I don't know, you can find something extremely valuable there that I can get from here and you can exchange it. Besides why are you asking me for a loan? You forgot that you left me everything you had when you left? Why would you need money for though?"** Barry inquired

 **"I want to take Kara out on a date. A date, date not just donut dates and that sort. Our anniversary is coming and I want to surprise her"** The answer came almost instantly.

 **"I see, so you want to buy her something really nice and take her to a fancy restaurant for dinner, huh? Or maybe even go farther than that?"** The speedster spoke

 **"Pretty much, but I already blew my savings on a present for her at Christmas so … I'm kind of in the dumps right now"** Menace retorted

 **"No worries. I saw the way you were looking at her at the party. You got it bad don't you?"** Barry said with a serious tone

 **"I'm in love with the woman. How worse can it get?"** The voice chuckled

 **"Not much worse I'm afraid. Well until you marry her that is. No sweat. What is the most valuable thing that you can exchange right now over there with too much fuss?"** Barry was ready to help him with whatever he might need.

 **"Gold, I guess. Why?"** Menace answered.

 **"No, that's too bulky. For a decent amount of money id have to send you at least a kilo of that stuff and I can't hide that from Caitlin, although to be honest I doubt she'd mind. She has always wanted Kara to be happy"** the speedster thought out loud

 **"Diamonds then?"** Menace suggested.

 **"Cisco, do we still have some of those diamonds we use in the lab for experiments somewhere?"** Barry looked at the engineer.

 **"Sure, but what do you need them for?"** the question appeared.

 **"Older Me needs some money to take Kara out on a date and the currencies are different. He suggested we give him some diamonds to exchange, but I can't go to the bank and just take out a bunch. However if we give him the ones from here and I order up another batch then nothing should happen"** The speedster explained.

 **"I see, you don't want Caitlin to find out either huh?"** Cisco quipped.

 **"I would rather she not. I know she and Kara talk and I don't want to spoil his surprise. I'll probably tell her later"** the answer came.

 **"There should be some in the vault. If I remember my inventory there should be two pouches, one with 600k and one with 400k."** the engineer smiled and Barry was gone coming back in under a second with the larger pouch. Cisco understood what he wanted to do and he already had the glasses and his gauntlets on and the two flashed to the pedestal room.

 **"Get somewhere where nobody can see a bright blue vortex popping up"** Barry told his older self.

 **"Done"** the voice could be heard after a little while. Cisco tuned in and opened a portal and Barry threw the pouch through, the swirling vortex closing almost immediately.

 **"I took some of the diamonds that we keep here at the lab for experiments. I'll order some more but that's the best I could do on such short notice"** Barry said with an apologetically.

 **"How much is in there, anyway?"** Menace inquired.

 **"I would say around 600,000 my currency. It's enough for what you need, right?"** the speedster gave him the answer he wanted.

 **"Dude, are you serious? This is what you call short notice and seemed like you were apologizing for? This is way too much. I don't even know how much the assets I left you were worth. I only needed a couple of thousand at the most"** Menace's voice sounded totally surprised.

 **"It's fine. You already know how much money we have. So that helps?"** the speedster wanted to make sure that was enough.

 **"Immensely. I think this is enough to cover all the dates for the next 10 years"** the voice from the other side cracked

 **"Good. Don't worry I won't say anything to Caitlin and neither will Cisco. If you ever have money issues come to me. We have way more than we will ever need here so if I can help you with anything, don't hesitate to ask. Besides, I'm happy that you two are together. Kara deserves someone to love and who loves her. I don't care if that only covers one date, just make sure to make it one she will never forget"** Barry made sure that Menace understood he would always help if he needed.

 **"Thank you. Truly. Now I have what I need to give her a beautiful night out. I just hope we don't get swamped by aliens and the likes"** Menace told his younger self.

 **"Don't mention it and don't consider it as a loan. Consider it as a start to the "get Barry and Kara together"** **fund. Besides, it can't be a loan if it was your own money to begin with"** Barry started to chuckle the joke prompting a laugh from the engineer **"Good luck and I hope she likes what you have in store for her. Think about it and plan ahead. I know me very well, you would never ask for money from anyone unless it was something that it was of the utmost importance. Kara fits into that category, quite well. Go big, show her how much she means to you. I can send you more if for what you have in mind it's not enough"** He had an excited tone in his voice that made it clear he was happy for the two

 **"Thank you. I'm going to get everything ready. I am going as big as I can go without looking like a pompous asshole. She means the world to me. Take care"** Older Barry spoke

 **"You? Looking like a pompous asshole? Never. But I know that if you came to me she deserves it. Which is not surprising, if you love her half as much as you told us that you love your Kara from the erased timeline then … I have a pretty good idea. Remember, you have any issues, you know who to call. Take care yourself"** Barry closed the line and Cisco looked at him.

 **"You were right that those two get along so well. I was actually surprised to see how close the two had gotten in the last months"**

 **"I know, Cisco. I saw by the way he was telling us about Kara that he was so very in love with her. I hoped this would happen, that man needs some peace of mind and happiness and it seems that now he has both"** the speedster replied to his friend. **"I actually wanted to talk about something with you"**

 **"Sure, what's up?"** the reply came instantly

 **"As you know Caitlin's delicious form"** he couldn't stop thinking about how beautiful she looked **"Will begin to grow in the next months. Is there any way you can modify her suit to be elastic around the stomach area? I would rather if she comes with me she doesn't get suffocated by it"**

 **"Delicious form, eh? You can't stop thinking about her"** the engineer gave him a grin and continued **"Actually that is what I came to talk to you about. I thought about that as well and I managed to come up with a set of materials that are elastic, but retain the same qualities that the suits have. Of course it won't be extremely elastic because Nano fibers aren't that by design, but if I replace the whole front section from the Frost suit with them, they should be good enough to accommodate her growth"** Cisco replied.

 **"Of course I can't, what would you even expect of me otherwise. That's good though. It seems that we both thought about the same thing. Thanks, bro"** The speedster smiled at the man in front of him **"Did Harry return to his Earth? I haven't seen him for a few days"**

 **"He said he needed to do something with regard to the financing of the labs in his world. Probably paperwork or something, I don't know. He said he'll be back when we manage to get the sample from Turtle so he can help with countering him"** The engineer replied

 **"All right. I don't know where that guy went to be honest. Didn't you say his identity was an art thief? The question came.**

 **"Yeah. A rare art thief, sometimes he steals it and sells it to other people, other times just wants to steal something from himself he just does that"** Cisco told him

 **"It doesn't make sense. What would an art thief want with money from a bank? It's totally out of character for the person that you`re describing"** the speedster thought out loud.

 **"I have no idea, maybe he's new in town and he needs some cash to rent a house?"** the engineer chuckled at the prospect of a poor art thief.

 **"Cisco, maybe it wasn't a fluke at all. This is Central City and people know about Flash and Frost. I think it might have been a test to see if he can stop us like he stopped everyone else"** Barry suddenly realized. The criminal's behavior suddenly made sense if the bank robbery was done for that exact purpose.

 **"Well you can say he partially succeeded. You can move through his field if needed only you have to stay phased. Although breaking your hand every time you need to punch him is a pain in the ass and not really advisable, I don't know how you two can do anything else"** Cisco said with a sad look on his face.

 ** _"Barry, turtle's here. I saw the guy in the mall. He wouldn't be that stupid right? TO just go out shopping like there's no problem?"_** Caitlin spoke in his mind.

 ** _"Wait as you serious? He's just shopping? That seems quite strange"_** Barry replied. **_"Stay there, I'm going to come over there and get some of his blood. I don't think he'll have the time to activate his bubble, but if he does stand by to give me some help"_**

 ** _"Understood. Be careful"_** the reply came. Barry was in his suit a second later prompting strange looks from Cisco

 **"Got a message from Cait. Turtle is in the mall, I'm going to see if I can get some blood out of him. Hopefully since she in civvies and there is no one around to alert him of my arrival, I might catch him off guard."** The speedster replied.

 **"Go. Get some blood and keep them safe"** the engineer told him with a worried voice. He knew that Caitlin had left with Bette shopping. The speedster took an injector and flashed out the door. He managed to get some blood, Caitlin wanted to ice the floor from where she was hiding, but instead of ice a torrent of water erupted out of her hands and flooded half the space they were in. Turtle realized something was wrong and activated his bubble and stormed out. It didn't matter, Barry already had his blood. However he was worried when he saw that Caitlin's ice powers were on the fritz. He took both her and Bette and sped them back to STAR Labs. The speedster already told Cisco he got the sample so he called Harry to tell him the same.

 **"What just happened?"** Barry asked his wife seeing her and Bette half soaked.

 **"No idea. I tried to freeze the floor so maybe I could trap Turtle and … it came out water"** She looked strangely at her hands.

 **"Water? So no ice. That's strange. Mind if I take a cell sample to see what's happening?"** Barry inquired

 **"No, go ahead. I want to see myself what in blazes is happening to me"** she replied. Barry took a small cell sample and went to study it, Caitlin flashed to the lockers and got herself some new clothes since the old ones were wet and she came back.

 **"Cait, throw an icicle for me will you?"** Barry asked. She looked at him strangely and did exactly that. To her surprise it came out as it should have, a straight icicle that Barry caught without too much difficulty **"Yeah, this confirms what I've been seeing. Take a look for yourself"** He invited her over to the microscope **"Your cells are in a state of flux, since ice is produced from water and the temperature is not constant to keep the ice solid, sometimes apparently you will eject water instead of ice. Which I assume is what happened at the store"** She looked into the visor and saw exactly what he was talking about. Her cells were shifting, all of them were growing ice crystals but for some of them as soon as the crystals grew they turned to water.

 **"Well this is bothersome. I won't know when I'll shoot an ice spike or become a human water gun"** she said a bit annoyed.

 **"Hmm. I guess then just don't use your ice powers. You still have your speed so that can be a solution"** Barry replied **"Let's take a run in the speed lab. I want to see if your top speed is the same and if you don't have issues with the power transfer since this happened. I'll run with you, I can use the exercise"**

She agreed and the two started a few laps in the pipeline which they created for the speed lab earlier. They had used it quite a few times while training to improve their speed. After about half an hour of running they went back to check the results.

 **"Nothing changed here, Cait. You seem to have the same top speed as always. Somehow only the ice powers are on the fritz, the speed is fine and your cells seem to be stable in using the energy from the Speed Force"** He told her pointing at the results.

 **"Maybe we should go try the others out as well? I need to know what I can use and what I can't"** she told her husband

 **"That would be a good idea"** Barry replied and they went to the sparring room. **"You throw what you want at me and I'll dodge. See what you can use and what you can't"** he smiled. She threw a couple ice daggers, about 15% of those came out water. Doing the same with spears about 30% of those as well came out liquid.

 **"So the larger they are the more chance they have to be water. I guess I can stick with the smaller version. They have the same impact"** She spoke. **"Let's see how the paralyzing fog works now, if it even works, I hope it's not the same percentage as with the large ice spears"** She made a small cloud, which surprising wasn't blue at all this time, it was red with silver tints and Barry ran through.

 **"Well this is different, it doesn't seem to be paralyzing at all"** He came out of the fog feeling supercharged and with lightning coursing off of him. **"Hmm, I have a strange request for you. Put a dagger through my palm would you?"**

 **"Why would I do that? You know I don't want to hurt you"** she said with an annoyed tone.

 **"It's for science. You know that I'll heal it up anyway in 10 minutes or so. Just do it, I have hunch of what this fog actually is"** He said with a convinced tone. Caitlin did what he asked and threw a dagger straight though his palm. He winced while pulling it out and he was bleeding profusely. He went to the fog and stuck his hand in the cloud. After a few seconds the fog dispersed and his wound was gone **"Guess my hunch was correct. This is not paralytic fog, its healing fog. It takes some of your energy and disperses it through the air, whoever gets in contact with it gets accelerated regeneration and the cloud disperses when it's out of power"** he said with a tone of amazement in his voice looking at his wife.

 **"Wow, ok ... so now instead of keeping enemies at bay I can help whoever is fighting. That's pretty useful actually"** she smiled brightly

 **"I guess now we have means of exchanging energy. When I went through the fog the first time I felt supercharged, like someone gave me a ton to eat. It did last a few seconds, probably because I didn't stay in the fog to absorb the whole thing, but if that's how that works then we should be able to exchange energy at will. Which is awesome. Try to see if you can control it. See if you can spawn paralytic fog or healing"** Barry told her and she thought about it raising both her hands toward him. Two clouds drifted on both sides. One was the usual blue and the one had the red silver tints to it.

 **"Wow this is very cool. I can do both and it only takes me a bit to concentrate on what I want to produce. Is this the baby's doing?"** she asked.

 **"I don't think so. Your body knows it has to protect the baby, so I think from that protection instinct this new power was born. It's a combination of your speedster and ice powers. Ice fog with Speed Force energy. That is certainly out there"** Barry said with an obvious hint of pride in his voice. **"Try the armor"** He smiled. She did exactly that.

The speedster saw from the first few seconds that it was different. It usually appeared under her costume now for some reason it appeared above. He could feel her panicking because now the ice was spreading to her face almost like trying to choke her, but when it did cover it, it molded precisely to her face allowing her to breathe without any issue. Everything was covered, even her hair which now had taken form of spikes on her back and thick layered armor covering the top of her head. The surprise was that the souls of her feet were not covered at all and the ice was going under her mask so her features were completely visible. They could see that she was Frost only she looked … frozen.

 **"This feels completely different. It's like the armor is flexible on my body not just plates of ice"** she commented

 **"Let me take a sample of it, we'll figure it out in the lab"** Barry approached and scraped some off her hand, but when he turned from her back grew a pair of ice wings **"What did you do?"**

 **"Nothing, I thought, wouldn't it be cool if I could fly and these grew out. Strangest feeling ever"** She looked at him crooked.

 **"Don't tell me you can fly now too. Usually ice is not flexible so at the most you'd be able to use those wings for gliding. When I started to think my wife can't become hotter that she looks in her Frost costume, now I got this. You never cease to amaze me, Cait"** The speedster commented and his jaws fell when she actually started to flap them in a rhythm and started to rise up **"This is not normal ice, this must be something else. We should go analyze this new type so we know what we have to do. Although, that is …"** he was left speechless while Caitlin moved through the air with ease. It was like she those wings all along. Barry was looking at his wife … flying.

Cisco and Harry were back and since the two speedsters were in the training room they decided to join them. The engineer had a bandage on his hand, he had a little accident with a piece of Nano wire that he was using for cables while redesigning the front of Frost's suit. Harry was really interested when the engineer told him that Caitlin's powers had started to change, but neither of them was prepared for what they saw. When they entered the room Cisco immediately observed the flying iced thing that was moving around the large room and almost panicked.

 **"Barry?! What the hell is going on here? Who is that? Did you recruit someone without telling us?"** he almost shouted.

 **"Calm down, nerd"** A voice sounded and Caitlin landed in front of them. **"It's just me. Nobody new here"**

 **"Wait, Caitlin is that you?"** his voice betrayed the surprise that he exhibited earlier. **"Since when can you fly?"**

 **"Since now I guess. The pregnancy has been messing with my powers, so Barry and I decided to test out everything to see what happens with them. This is what happened when I tried to ice up. The armor apparently now works with the suit and envelops my whole body"** She talked while Harry and Cisco still looked quite strangely at her seeing that she was covered completely in ice from head to toe.

 **"Oh, remember the ice fog?"** Barry looked at the engineer who nodded. **"Yeah, now she can create a healing fog. Just because"** Cisco's jaw didn't seem to be able to get up the floor

 **"What do you mean by healing fog?"** Harry asked.

 **"I really don't want to demonstrate that all over again. I had to make a hole through my hand to test it. Needless to say that the injury went away instantly while I was in that"** He motioned to a new cloud that had appeared while Caitlin was near her husband. She had made it appear king of guessing that Barry wanted to make a point.

 **"Is it safe?"** Harry asked. He had seen her paralyzing fog in action and he didn't want to try anything of the sort on himself.

 **"Yep. Totally safe. You two can go in if you want"** Barry told them and the two stepped incredulously toward the cloud and entered.

 **"Seems to be safe"** the engineer commented **"Although it's still fog and I can't see anything out of it"** the two stepped out. Caitlin noticed the bandage on his hand.

 **"What happened to you?"** she inquired pointing.

 **"Oh a little accident while redesigning the front of your suit for when you'll be … bigger. Just a cut nothing really that big"** he replied. Barry looked at her and she looked at him.

 **"Cisco, you were in the cloud. Can you take the bandage off for a minute?"** Caitlin asked her friend.

 **"Sure"** the man removed the bandage and started to gawk at his hand. In the palm where he had a large gash before there was nothing. The injury had disappeared **"I see now why you said it was healing fog. The cut I had on my hand is gone"** He showed the two and Harry's face fell yet again.

 **"Well now we know that it works on normal people too. Good information. Cait, can you remove the armor?"** the speedster asked her. She nodded and concentrated, the ice started to recede and after a little bit she was back to normal without anything resembling ice on her. Surprising to Barry her hair was dry as well as her clothes **"This is definitely not normal ice. You would be wet if it was. I'm going to analyze this small piece I got off your armor, I really want to know how you did that"** He said visibly excited and motioned around his head mimicking the flight of a bird.

 **"Not without me you aren't"** she replied smiling.

 **"We're going to try to find a way to negate Turtle's power. We'll be in my lab if you need us"** Cisco told the couple and left. The two flashed back to the cortex to start analyzing the piece of ice that Barry had taken as samples.

What they found was something that Martin would call astonishing. The crystals of ice weren't crystals at all. They were cells that were exhibiting the properties of ice. They would harden and keep the same properties, but they were still malleable and pretty much elastic which explained the fact that she could use them for wings.

 **"This explains the flexibility. This isn't ice"** Barry pointed to the monitor.

 **"I know I produce ice from the moisture in the air. I had no idea that my cells could do that. Although"** she said and her stomach started to grumble **"Keeping it up for an extended period of time does seem to take quite a toll on my system."**

 **"I don't think it's that. Remember, you have the child too. Somehow I suspect you won't have any sort of issue after birth. I guess we'll wait and see"** Barry gave her a cheeky grin.

 **"What are you grinning about anyway?"** she questioned him.

 **"Just remembering my old MMORPG days. We have a complete party now. A healer, you, a tank, which is Kara, two fast damage dealers, me and … well … myself. Now all we need is a buffer"** Barry started to laugh loudly.

 **"Sorry, never managed to get into that. What is a buffer?"** she asked with a serious face.

 **"A character with skills that boost other characters. Basically they give bonuses to others as well as themselves"** Barry continued through the laughter.

 **"Well, yeah we don't have that, you`re correct. To be perfectly fair, I had no idea until now that I could do any of the stuff I just did. But you do have to admit that the healing fog and the new ice armor are cool"** Caitlin smiled

 **"Like I said earlier, just when I thought my wife can't get any hotter than in her Frost outfit, she comes up with Ice armor that makes her look even more so. How's that for irony, ice armor that makes you look hotter"** Barry chimed coming over to her and giving her a big hug.

 **"You won't say I'm hot when I'm the size of a small planet with its own gravity, Barry"** She chuckled at him.

 **"Wrong. That will make you even hotter, because you'll be the mother of our child. Besides, if you don't like being a bit fat you know you won't be like that for long"** Barry quipped. She jumped at him and kissed him hard. Responding with her mind

 **"I have said this before, but now let me say it again, Barry. This is the only type of fat I always wanted to be, so I don't really care"**

 **"I know, Cait. I was just teasing you. I love you"** He replied while they were still holding each other and tied by their lips.

 **"I love you too, Barry"** She replied.


	55. Slow

It was the fifth time this month when the alerts sounded in STAR Labs. For some reason or another the breach detection system was on the fritz. It had started sometime after New Year's, on a day where they were all enjoying a little R&R they received a ping and a location for a breach that had opened in the city. When they got there, there was no sign of the vortex. It had closed way too quickly sign that someone wanted to not be seen. The speedsters also didn't find anyone at the site and the cameras and detection systems didn't pick up anyone either. Cisco thought something must be on the fritz, but after completing some diagnostics the system looked fine to him. They decided to overlook it and moved on. Until it happened again, same story. The problem was that it started to sound more and more like an issue with the system itself that the breach detection. Cisco got through everything, made a complete overhaul that took him nearly a week. This was the first alert they had received after that overhaul. Cisco had no doubt in his mind that the breaches were happening by this point, he even experimented with the machine by going into town at random locations and creating small breaches which the machine picked up.

 **"What the hell is happening?"** Cisco said with a frustrated tone **"It's like someone is trying to see how much it takes for me to go nuts over this"**

 **"Calm down, dude. Someone is obviously opening those breaches, the problem is … who?"** Barry spoke to the engineer trying to calm him down.

 **"That is the 10 million dollar question now isn't it?"** Caitlin asked while coming into the cortex. She had started showing a bit and the fact that Barry told her to get pregnant clothes in advance was actually helping now.

 **"Do you have cameras anywhere near that point?"** the speedster asked

 **"Yea, I'm pulling the footage as we speak"** Cisco answered

 **"I thought after we finished with speedsters that can open holes to other universes we wouldn't need this old thing anymore, I guess that's not the case in the slightest"** Caitlin smiled while happily munching on a power bar. Cisco was extremely happy that she loved those considering she had to eat at least two a day these days.

 **"There we go. Let's see what we have"** the engineer put up the footage on the large center monitor and started to go with it at a slow speed. They could see a portal clearly opening but not staying open for more than a few seconds then someone came out of it and immediately became invisible.

 **"At least that not a speedster. Can you go in closer?"** Caitlin asked approaching the monitor.

 **"Sorry, Caitlin. This isn't CSI, the video is quite low resolution and the "zoom and enhance"** **trick doesn't work in real life as long as you don't have enough data"** the engineer replied with a serious face.

 **"At least now we know that your system is not faulty, Cisco. Strange, before the breaches where in areas that didn't have detection and they lasted a lot longer, now all of a sudden they appear in an area where there are cameras? That doesn't really make any sort of sense"** Barry replied looking at the pixelated figure. It was clearly a woman, but beside that, the video was too fuzzy for anything.

 **"I know, since now we established that the system isn't on the fritz, it means the other breaches were opened with the intent of not being seen by any cameras. A meeting maybe? Or a simple pass through universes?"** Cisco looked at the two who shrugged.

 **"Whoever that person is it seems to have at least one power. The same one you have, opening breaches at will"** the speedster commented and looked at him surprised **"It does look like she has more control over it too. Maybe if we can catch her she can show you how it's done"**

 **"I can control my breaching ability quite well, thank you very much. The issue is how do we get to her, if she becomes invisible immediately then you won't be able to detect her anyway"** the engineer was in a quandary.

 **"Maybe some sort of thermal goggles would help. Her form should still be giving off heat unless her suit dampens it specifically to boost her power"** Barry replied.

 **"At least this gives me a bit more reason to work on your suits. I can put some tech in your cowl and in Caitlin's mask that you can activate via the bracers, thermal vision, night vision, stuff like that. Because why not"** Cisco smiled.

 **"There's nothing more we can do at this time. You got the suits to modify, Cisco. I think we might take a lazy day, just go and sit in the sun for a bit"** Caitlin told the engineer **"Unless we can help you with anything?"**

 **"Not really, if you two were engineers then we could probably make the suit modifications in less than 30 minutes and I could come join you, but since you aren't I guess I'll have to do that myself"** The engineer looked at them and smiled as the two took off their rings and gave them to him.

 **"All right man, take care"** Barry smiled at his friend. **"If you need anything, even if pizza and coffee, give me a call. You`re working to help us, so I'd at least like to keep you fed and caffeinated"** The speedster barely managed to finish his sentence when the breach alert appeared again. This one was again in full view of a set of cameras. Cisco managed to get a more accurate view of the area and they saw the same woman picking up an object form the ground. Something that looked a lot like some sort of circlet that you would wear on your head only with some technology attached to it. She was gone in an instant like the last time.

 **"What was that? Can you take a better look?"** Caitlin asked the engineer.

 **"Nope. That's as far as it goes. It looked like some sort of circlet, but that's as much as I can tell you"** he replied. **"Also, me and Harry managed to create a serum that will stop Turtle, for a while. But if he can't create that slow bubble you two should have no problem in getting him here and putting him in the pipeline until his powers come back. Then we can think of a more permanent solution, maybe make a batch of nanobots that can dampen his powers."**

 **"Tell Harry we said thanks. That guy has been a pain in the ass especially since we can't really touch him without injuring ourselves"** Barry replied. Somehow like the universe knew they were trying to take half a day off, his phone rang. It was Tina.

 **"Barry, remember that guy from the news a while back? The one that tried to rob that bank?"** she asked the speedster

 **"Yeah, we nicknamed him turtle because he can slow us"** he answered

 **"He was just here. We were like stuck in time for the last half an hour while he took something from the vault. Can you come over?"** she asked

 **"We'll be right there"** Caitlin replied and she closed the line

 **"So much for taking some time off to bask in the sun. See you later Cisco"** Barry told the engineer as they both flashed out. They were in Tina's office a minute later. She was looking over some inventory stats and was alerted to their arrival by the usual gust of wind.

 **"I'm trying to find out what he stole, the problem with that is we have a lot of projects that were either abandoned or shelved because of costs. We keep those in the vault and a few of the projects from STAR as well."** She told the two speedsters.

 **"You sure it was turtle?"** Caitlin asked and Tina gave them a tabled with surveillance footage. Mercury had about the same system as STAR maybe a bit more outdated but the video was pretty clear. **"This is becoming more and more bizarre. First money, now tech. He's an art thief"**

 **"He stole a prototype neural enhancement mesh. It was supposed to be put on people's heads or inside their skulls depending on what it would be for. Its primary use would have been to repair spine damage by sending the impulses from the brain to the legs separately. I shelved this project after we managed to get the tech at STAR West to work for Felicity"** Tina showed them on the inventory list.

 **"Any other things it might have been used for?"** Barry asked quite interested in what the doctor was telling them.

 **"Initially that mesh was designed because of something a good friend once said to me. His father had a degenerative disease that destroyed the myelin sheaths that usually insulate the axon of a neuron. With that the impulses could be boosted enough so they reached their target regardless if there was a degeneration in the sheaths or not"** Tina remembered how that idea started as her mind trailed off for a bit.

 **"If it's used to boost neural activity, can it be used to dampen it as well?"** Caitlin asked after looking over the schematics

 **"Yes, it should be, just reverse the polarity and increase the current. But why would you want to do that, if the brain cannot fire then the body dies. It would make no sense to be used the other way around"** Tina looked at them rather strangely.

 **"I was just asking. Since this theft doesn't really make any sort of sense, we were trying to get the whole picture so that we can find out if it can be used in other means then its own intended purpose"** Caitlin replied.

 **"Yeah, I thought I should let you know, since the guy practically disappeared before I even had a chance to call you, I didn't think you'd be in time to catch him"** Tina replied.

 **"Thanks for the heads up. We'll see what we can do about that."** Caitlin told her and the physicist nodded, the two speedsters flashing back to STAR Labs, where Cisco was hard at work on their suits.

 **"So first money, now some tech. This guy's pattern is all over the place. If I didn't know better I'd say this was just some random thing. The mesh he stole from Mercury is nothing really of much value, seeing that it has been patented but never used. I'm pretty sure he didn't steal it just to sell it somewhere else"** Barry commented looking at the specs that Tina had just sent over. The breach alert sounded again, but this time it closed almost immediately. The one that had been detected was inside STAR Labs. Before they could turn a familiar whoosh came into the cortex. It was Jesse.

 **"Hey, Jesse. How's everything on earth two?"** Caitlin smiled at the speedster who was wearing her outfit.

 **"We've been having issues with breaches. Our detectors keep beeping but every time we get there nothing is happening. It's like they open and then close again almost instantly"** she told the two **"I came to see if my father could come back and help check the system. Maybe it has issues or something"**

 **"Jesse, we've been having the same problem, but Harry isn't here. He returned to earth two four days ago after helping us develop something to counter Turtle"** Barry replied to her calmly

 **"What do you mean he isn't here? He's not home either. We thought he forgot something and remained here to help. Not like he didn't do that before, he seems to have a soft spot for you two nerds"** She chuckled.

 **"Cisco, can you come to the cortex for a bit? Jesse's here"** Barry spoke into the intercom. The engineer came into the cortex a few minutes later greeting Jesse.

 **"Jesse is saying that their breach detection system is broken. But they have been getting the same kind of disturbances as we have. Now, however, Harry seems to be missing. You said he already left from our earth, did you see him go through the portal?"** Caitlin asked him

 **"Not only I saw him go through the portal, I made the portal for him to go back. I'm sure I didn't screw up which begs the question, where is Harry?"** Cisco responded quite swiftly.

 **"I haven't seen my father ever since he came back the second time to your world to help you with your metahuman issue. The one that slowed you. Me and Wally initially thought that he just wanted to take a break, since we know about the vacation home and everything, but I went there first and there was no one. Then I came here."** She said with a really worried tone in her voice.

 **"Then we have a problem. Let Wally handle Central City for a little bit. Stay here, rest, eat, let Cisco finish working on our suits and then we'll go to earth 2 with you"** Barry replied.

 **"If nothing I can at least check to see if your breach detector is on the fritz. Where have most breaches started to appear?"** Cisco asked.

 **"They don't seem to have a pattern, sometimes in the city, sometime in Hub City, and a few times over a spot in the African rain forest"** She told them quite swiftly

 **"African rain forest. Damn. Isn't that where Harry sent Grodd the last time we fought with him?"** Caitlin remembered something.

 **"Maybe, but I doubt Grodd knew that he was the Harry from earth 2 and not our Harrison. Which begs the question, why would breaches be opening anywhere near that place? Harry didn't say the gorillas there were that advanced"** Barry replied looking at Jesse

 **"I don't know what's there. The location is supposed to be a sanctuary for gorillas that were used as lab experiments instead of humans, but since I've never actually visited the place I can't tell you much more than that."** Jesse explained.

 **"Could be just a coincidence, or could be a fritz in your machine. The location seems oddly coincidental though"** Cisco voiced his thoughts. As the three were talking they did not manage to see the person that had just pulled into the parking lot and was now standing in the front of the building. Turtle had come to STAR Labs on his own. He managed to clock one of the scientists that were coming out of the building and get inside. The moment he did the alarms started to blare.

 **"Caitlin, Barry, Turtle got inside the labs"** The engineer pointed at the screen and he saw how the bubble he was producing kept continuing to expand. Barry flashed to the control console and pressed a button which release a mist of nanites into the building, but could do nothing more, the bubble enveloped the cortex and the four people were stuck. They remained still like they were statues.

 ** _"Just great. Now this guy's here all of a sudden. More tech? What do we have in the lab that he might want or need"_** Caitlin asked him as they could barely move.

 ** _"I don't know, but I'm betting it has something to do with the mesh that he stole from Mercury. However this will not work with him. He's inside the labs and you know what that means"_** Barry tried to grin but only managed after a few minutes. Being speedsters meant they weren't completely stuck in one place as Barry found out on one of his earlier encounters. It just meant that they moved extremely slowly.

 ** _"You activated the nanites, didn't you?"_** Caitlin asked

 ** _"Yes. If he stays here more than a couple of minutes then the nanites should subdue him. That was quite a big mistake he made. This is why you never tell anyone about the extra security measures you have installed"_** Barry told his wife. It took the nanites only 10 minutes to negate his powers. The bubble suddenly disappeared and they could see on the monitor that the man started to panic.

 **"Jesse, mind knocking him out and taking him to a spot in the pipeline? Cisco is still fiddling with our suits"** Barry asked the junior speedster.

 **"No problem, give me a minute"** she grinned and flashed out. In less than a minute she was back and Turtle was locked up in a cell in the pipeline. **"There. So this was the guy that slowed time wasn't it? I felt like my speed was being drained, although I have never felt so powerful before"**

 **"The guy transforms kinetic energy to potential energy in the bubble he creates. It stops you, but all the energy we create when we run is turned into potential energy in our bodies"** Caitlin explained.

 **"Aren't you afraid that he might envelop the lab again and stop everything even from that cell?"** Jesse looked at them rather inquisitive

 **"No, the cell and the nanites will completely suppress his powers. He won't be able to stop a fly"** Barry responded grinning. **"I think it might be time to go ask him what he knows don't you think Frost?"**

 **"I don't think you are going to get much out of him, Barry"** Cisco pointed at his monitor where the man that had initially woken up and was wondering around the small cell now had stopped and was doing nothing. After a few seconds he collapsed on the floor remaining immobile.

 **"What's wrong with him?"** Jesse asked. Caitlin moved to the monitors pulling up the cell's internal sensors that kept an eye on the health of the prisoners.

 **"Everything seems to be in order, except his EKG. Barry, come look at this"** she told the other speedster.

 **"What the hell is this? It's the first time I've seen an EKG that spiked so much. What is this guy actually"** he asked himself and his wife.

 **"I don't know, it's like his brain turned to mush the moment he stopped. It might be a side effect of his powers. If he doesn't use them, his brain slows down or something. I can't say anything from here and I'm definitely not going in that cell to find out"** She said with a crooked look.

 **"What lab did he go to, Cisco and what do we have in there?"** Barry asked the engineer.

 **"He was going toward the bio engineering section, but I'm afraid I can't offer you more than that. The place where Jesse caught him was where I already said. If we had left him a bit more to see what he was going for we might have known"** the engineer told the two.

 **"I have seen this before somewhere"** Jesse pointed to the schematics that were still left on the screen from what Tina had told them earlier.

 **"Not here, more than likely, could it be something your father has worked on in the past?"** Caitlin replied.

 **"Yes, I do remember something about managing to increase someone's intelligence or brain power with the use of some sort of waves. I don't remember which kind"** She blurted out almost like remembering something but not quite.

 **"Then it's not the same. This is a simple conductor inducer to boost brain impulse power so that they will go through damaged neurons without stopping. I don't think it has something to do with what you just said"** Barry told the speedster.

 **"So what do we do about my dad?"** she asked.

 **"Let Cisco finish our suits and we're going to earth two. If you want you can go ahead and start searching already and we'll come with you as soon as our suits are done."** Barry told her.

 **"All right. I'm going back then. I'll be waiting for you to get back there, until then I'm going to search for dad and see if there is any kind of clues to his whereabouts"** she smiled. **"Thank you for being so readily available to help"**

 **"Harry is already part of the family. Go back there and start searching. We'll be along as fast as we can"** Caitlin told the junior speedster who smiled and opened a breach stepping through it.

 **"I'm going back to finish your suits. Should take me the rest of the day. Everything should be ready by tonight so we can cross over to earth two tomorrow morning"** Cisco smiled.

 **"Care for a walk?"** Barry smiled toward his wife **"Unless you feel a bit fat and you don't want to"**

 **"No, a walk will be fine. I wanted to stretch my legs for a bit"** She smiled. The two got out from the lab and started to walk on the waterfront slowly, she was holding his arm as they were walking.

 **"I missed this, you know. Just you and me walking down the street"** Barry smiled toward his wife.

 **"Sometimes it feels like we're so busy that we forget to enjoy the nice things in life. Just walking looking at the sunset with the person you love. I still remember that first time when we did that. We were so new and yet that was something that I enjoyed so much that it has never left my mind"** Caitlin replied smiling at him

 **"Yes, I do remember that too. Only now you could say we have skipped a grade. We're married, we're happy together and we're about to add a new member to our family. Two people that initially were hung up on others"** Barry remembered how much he loved Iris back then

 ** _"Life changes you, you could say that in this case it wasn't life. You changed me, Barry. Until I was struck by lightning I never had someone that was there for me whenever I needed it. Ronnie tried, but he had his own life and stuff that he had to do. Those six months that we kept meeting in our heads, I never through it relevant to tell you until now, but it was the first time in my life where a person that was not a coworker would sit with me , somewhere outside of work and just chat, discuss stuff. As much as we tried to get me out of the coma the fact that you were there made me open up and not be the same shielded person I always was."_** Caitlin smiled as the two simply decided to sit on the same bench that they sat that day.

 **"I knew that's how you were. You through I didn't notice the blushes, the fact that you controlled almost all your replies toward me and tried to mask everything between walls of professionalism even when we were in our dreamscape. That was something that I only understood way later about you, Cait."** Barry smiled at her as she put her head on his shoulder looking at the sun that was slowly going down.

 **"Now here we are, you are right, we should take more time and just walk around the city. I know we both love speeding, but as we've discovered a while back, sometimes it's nice to just take things slow, isn't it"** Caitlin replied to him

 **"Only if we both take them at the same pace"** Barry turned toward her and kissed her lips holding her tight. **"Is it strange that the more time we spend together and the closer we are the more I realize how much I love you?"**

 **"It's not weird at all. It's the same experience I'm having. I don't think I'll ever get tired of being close to you. I love you so much"** She replied deepening the kiss. Unknown to them, there was a figure dressed in a trench coat and a hoodie that was watching them from afar. His cell rang, it was Oliver.

 **"Barry, where are you?"** he asked with a bit of worry in his voice.

 **"Cait and I are on a bench near the marina. Enjoying the sunset, since we haven't done that for a long time. Why?"** the speedster responded.

 **"Get inside as soon as you can. A friend of mine came by today, she alerted us that someone has put a contract on your heads. They want you dead as soon as possible. They hired the league of assassins. You already know what that means"** The voice told him making Barry stop and take in his surroundings using his speed. He noticed the cloaked figure instantly.

 **"I see. There is already someone that seems to be kind of shady in our proximity. I'm waiting to see if she makes a move"** the speedster replied.

 **"Woman? Long hair? Has a black hoodie and a trench coat and stands out?"** the archer asked.

 **"Yes, that's her. Why?"** Caitlin responded. Barry had patched in two communicators that they had around just for cases like these so both could hear what was happening.

 **"That is actually who came to me. Her name is Talia al Ghul. She is the second daughter of Ra's al Ghul. You know the person I'm talking about"** Oliver told them over the phone.

 **"Doesn't she know who we are? She must know that we of all people don't need protection"** Barry replied.

 **"She does know, but since you two are friends she decided to go there and keep an eye on you anyway. We were … close once. She has helped me with some things, I have helped her with some of hers. While I know she is a friend, I do know that all assassins keep secrets, which is why I'm telling you this right now. I don't know her agenda"** Ollie told them

 **"Why would she come to you anyway? How would she know that we're even your friends and furthermore if she knows who we are, why keep an eye on us anyway"** Caitlin asked with a bit of worry in her voice.

 **"I don't know, but you can ask her that yourselves if you manage to sit down and talk to her. I do suspect however that she will be quite hard to catch"** the archer told the two.

 **"With our speed? I doubt that. Thank you for the heads up, Ollie. We'll let you know if anything else happens"** Barry told his friend.

 **"Just be careful"** The voice told them visibly worried. **"With Caitlin pregnant you can understand why I thought you should need to know this"**

 **"Yes we do. Thank you, Oliver. See if you can use some of your former connections to the league and have that contract cancelled, or at least find out who put it on our heads. We can take that from there. We will be gone to earth 2 to help Jesse find Harry. It seems that he has disappeared, so we will be all right as long as we're there"** the speedster stated bluntly.

 **"All right. Take care. I'll let you know if I manage to get anything done with my sources. If you aren't on this earth then I'll leave the information with Cisco"** Ollie told them

 **"Take care yourself and try this time not to get almost killed when you deal with the league"** Caitlin quipped and they heard a scoff then the line went dead.

 ** _"A league of assassins contract on our head huh? Now this is new. I know we're rich and all but who would want to kill Barry and Caitlin Allen?"_** the speedster asked her mentally.

 ** _"Maybe it's time we find out, don't you think? We should have a little chat with Talia over there"_** Caitlin grinned. The two speedsters looked around and when the coast was clear they flashed back to the penthouse with the hooded figure in tow. When they arrived, she stood at the ready to fight. Barry smiled.

 **"Talia, I presume?"**

 **"That is my name, yes. I see Oliver has mentioned me"** the woman took down her hoodie

 **"Right now actually, we saw you skulking around so … we decided that it would be best to have a chat. Don't worry we don't mean you any harm"** Caitlin invited her to sit on one of the chairs in the large penthouse. She did so gracefully, she was still a bit dazed by the trip.

 **"I know you told Oliver about the contract and thank you for keeping an eye on us, but can you give us more details about that, more specifically … why you actually came to tell Oliver about it?"** Barry asked her taking a seat on the large couch near to his wife.

 **"I assume you know who my father was if Oliver told you about me?"** the woman voiced

 **"Yes, he did. How is that relevant?"** Caitlin asked pretty bluntly.

 **"I do not share my father's thoughts on the world. I think it deserves saving and your activities through STAR Labs has attracted my attention. I know what you have been doing, via research and via your alternate personalities. The moment I heard someone wanted you gone, I started to ask myself why. Not being able to find out for myself, I went to Star City and talked to Oliver. I know you have helped him in the past and he had a surefire way to reach you and warn you about the contract"** she replied with the same blunt tone as was Caitlin's question.

 **"That doesn't bode well for us or for Oliver. If you, who are still a part of the league, couldn't find out who the man was that put this contract on us, then I doubt he will. We would rather not kill anyone, but when it comes to Caitlin and our child, if anyone tries to hurt them they will find out just how easy it is for a speedster to break their necks like a twig"** Barry said with a cold face which surprised Caitlin very much

 **"I would concur. The league however is my home and has been my life for the last 25 years. I would rather not have it extinguished because some idiot put a contract on Flash and Frost. The problem is I can't do that, because that would mean me giving away your identities"** Talia explained her quandary to the two speedsters.

 **"This is supposed to be the largest underground organization that has been active for centuries and has information that people has never seen and you`re telling us they don't know Barry and Caitlin Allen's secret identities?"** the speedster looked at her with a surprised face.

 **"No, they do not. You were never in our sights so we had no reason to dig up information on you. I did that on my own because I was solely interested. Now, however, when there is a contract on your heads, I would suggest you be very careful about keeping your secret very well hidden. The league has honor, but that is both a good thing and a bad thing. They will always uphold a contract and for that reason they will hold back nothing to get to you. While exposing you would serve no purpose, the league should not have that information, because if they get it you will never be safe again."** Talia replied with a stern voice, pointing out the visible issues the two speedsters had to face while the league was on their tail.

 **"We are not that familiar with the league as you or Oliver. Is there another way to rescind a contract except killing us or the person that put it there in the first place taking it back?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"There is. But it has only been used twice in the 2500 years that the league has existed. If the person or persons targeted pose so great of a threat to the league that pursuing the contract brings peril to the integrity of the organization, then the contract will be rescinded and the person that put it will be reimbursed with the warning to never put up such a contract again. Some have tried to make us disappear by sending a contract on very prominent personas which were very well guarded"** the woman explained to them

 **"So, if we manage to kill enough of them to destabilize the league, then they will cancel the contract? Hmm. Interesting. How many of them would we have to kill?"** Barry asked simply prompting a surprised look from Caitlin.

 **"A few thousands. Nothing that you two can't do, but I would hope you don't take the killing route"** her reply was quite blunt.

 **"As we have both said before, we are not fond of killing. Talia, you have to understand something. If you and Ollie can't do anything about this and we remain in danger, I will personally go to Nanda Parbat and kill everyone there just to make a point. You know them. Send them a message from Flash and Frost. If they try anything on Barry and Caitlin Allen, they will not only have to find a new place to stay, but they will have to find a field to bury all their dead"** Barry's eyes were dark and his voice was cold

 **"I understand. Thank you for not doing that right away, my sister Nyssa has been trying to bring the league out of the killing business. I would personally like to see her succeed"** Talia realized that in the time it took them to talk, everyone back at base could have already been dead.

 **"We could, in the end they are all assassins for hire, but we won't. Let's hope your sister manages that. Relay them that message and make sure to be clear that if something happens to either one of us, the other will make sure that the league of assassins doesn't exist anymore. That should suffice as a "threat to the integrity of the organization"** , **don't you think**?" Caitlin smiled brightly at the woman who was surprised that the two wouldn't just go in and kill everyone.

 **"Yes it will. I will go and convey this message right away. We'll keep in touch and I'll tell you the answer that I receive. Good night"** She got up from the chair and Barry took her down to the lobby and he returned.

 **"Would you actually do that, Barry? Go to Nanda Parbat and murder everyone?"** Caitlin asked him when he came back.

 **"If they hurt you, I would hunt them and make sure they are extinct. Each and every last one of them"** his eyes told the whole story, he would do that without fail.

 **"Good, because I would do the same. I know before I was opposed to that. But now this family is about to have another member who is very important to us both. Somewhere along the line, I realized that I would do it too. To protect you and our child. While I would never permanently have that resolve, I would kill them all just to protect you. I'm never going to lose someone I love ever again"** She answered. The steel look she had in her eyes was the same that he did. They were worth the world to one another and if something happened to either of them, the one that was left standing would enact bloody revenge on whoever hurt the person they loved. Caitlin had been opposed to it before, but now it was clear. They would kill to protect their family.

 **"I love you too, Cait"** The speedster took her in his arms and gave her a long soft passionate kiss.

* * *

AN : To the guest that mentioned their time travel abilities : Yes, they could have, but you know what they say ... The first rule of time travel is ... :)


	56. Tracks

The next morning the two speedsters raced to the lab, but while they did that something unusual happened. They ghosted again, finding themselves looking at duplicates that were running beside them which then disappeared. When they got to the lab their costumes were neatly put back into their rings which were left in the Gideon room for safe keeping. They weren't on their usual mannequins in the cortex. The two got the rings and came back to wait for Cisco.

 **"You noticed what happened this morning, didn't you?"** Caitlin asked her husband.

 **"I did. We already know what that means and it can't be good. Ever since the Speed force warned us that purposefully modifying the timeline for personal gain can be punishable with anything from losing your speed to what happened to Menace, the only reason that we would do that is something big is about to happen"** The speedster replied

 **"I know and since the only reason that we would do that is something getting obliterated, I think we might have a big problem with this trip to earth two. Either on site there or here. This thing with Harry might not be so cut and dry as we initially thought"** Her voice was getting worried which prompted Barry to take her in his arms and gave her a smile.

 **"At least we know one thing"** she looked at him not understanding what the point was that he was trying to make **"We BOTH ghosted, which means we were not injured. Remember, Cait as long as we're together we can beat anything"** He smiled and she realized he had a point. They were both all right, something did happen, but not to them. That made her worry a bit less, but some still remained for the fate of their friends. Barry called Bette

 **"Hey, do you have a lot of stuff to do at the precinct?"** He asked her.

 **"Not really, no crazy men with bombs lately since that incident. Why?"** she responded

 **"We need to go help Jesse find Harry. I'm pretty sure Cisco is coming, but I needed to know if you were coming too. Since we could use your tactical assessment and planning. We're supposed to go to Central City, but if Harry has indeed been taken by Grodd we will more than likely have to go into unknown territory in Africa. Which is why your expertise would be welcomed"** The speedster told her.

 **"Cisco told me something like that last night. Yeah, I'm in. When do we need to leave?"** She asked.

 **"Come to STAR. We're waiting for Cisco and we'll be leaving"** the answer came.

 **"Understood"** she responded and closed the line. Caitlin was moving around the cortex quite distraught, biting her lower lip

 **"What's bothering you, Cait?"** Barry asked

 **"This whole thing seems a bit strange to me. We know that Cisco can open breaches to wherever he wants on the world he connects to. Since he opened that breach into STAR Labs and Harry never made it there, what does that amount to?"** She asked with a weird look on her face.

 **"No idea. It can mean that someone can Hijack his portals and make them come out wherever that person needs and not where Cisco wants. IT can mean that he simply could have just been kidnapped from the lab, which is a likelier possibility, or that he might have gone on his own to find something and just disappeared. Those are the only three possibilities I can think of at the time"** Barry responded. Cisco entered the cortex carrying a bag with 20 bars that he had prepared in advance.

 **"Morning, I made these for the trip to earth two. Caitlin has to eat them regularly and you might always need them for extra energy"** he smiled at the couple, Bette arrived a few minutes later

 **"You two, there's something we need to tell you. This morning when we were running toward STAR, we ghosted again"** Barry wanted to tell them everything so they don't put themselves in danger needlessly **"You know what that means"**

 **"You travelled in time. Which means something is going to go majorly wrong, either here or on earth two. I guess we should be on the lookout"** Cisco told them as he put his gauntlets and glasses on. **"Let's go then. We'll see what we can come up with on the other side. Where do you want to go? STAR Labs? Or the CCPD?"**

 **"STAR for now. We can always get our doubles to help if needed"** Barry told them. Cisco put his glasses on and a blue vortex appeared and the four people stepped through it to find themselves in the Cortex of the labs on earth two. The breach alert was already blaring and two flashes of light made their appearance immediately. Both speedsters sighed when they saw who it was.

 **"Welcome to Earth 2"** Wally smiled at them **"Did you come here to help us find Harry?"**

 **"Yeah. Sorry Wally I forgot to tell you. I asked them to come since we don't know where my dad is right now"** Jesse told him. Somehow it had escaped her mind that she asked for help from the other universe.

 **"That's fine. I get it, you`re worried for your dad"** he smiled and took her hand.

 **"Right. I'm going to get cracking and see if there's anything wrong with the breach detector"** Cisco told them putting his glasses down on the consoles.

 **"I'm going to go through the security footage at the lab. It might take a bit since the timeframe of Harry's disappearance is so large. I'll be in the server room"** Bette told them

 **"My dad has already managed to put your access in from the last time you were here. Bette, I'll come with you to get your access updated as well"** Jesse replied and exited with her to go to the server room.

 **"Meanwhile, Wally? Did you two find anything?"** Barry inquired.

 **"Nothing. Man, it seems like he just vanished into thin air. Jesse already went through the security footage twice, but didn't find anything"** He replied.

 **"It doesn't matter. I've been teaching Bette how to detect and recover files. If anything was modified or altered she'll figure it out"** Cisco told the three prompting surprised looks from Caitlin and Barry **"What? We do other stuff at home besides snog all day, come on"**

 **"All right. Let's wait for Jesse and come up with a list of reasons or where he might have gone"** Caitlin told then, but they didn't have to wait long. Jesse gave Bette the access to start digging through the secure files and she was back in a few minutes.

 **"So we're starting at square 1, right? We don't know anything at the moment and you two have not found anything that might help, correct?"** Barry asked the junior speedsters who nodded. **"All right. Jesse, do you know if Harry had something that he was working on privately? Something that he maybe would not share with you at all or only with you?"**

 **"Not that I know of. To be fair, the last few weeks he was mostly trying to see if he can perfect breach travel and something I think he got from your earth, nanotech?"** She replied.

 **"Yes. We gave him a sample of Ray's nanites for anti-speedsters and metahumans. Since he decided to help here as well in capturing them and with you two, we thought it would be a good idea that he has some safety. We would not want another Zoom to happen"** Caitlin replied.

 **"He was the same as usual, also he had been working on the side for a way for you guys to stop your slow man, but as far as I've understood it he never got far because he couldn't study the cells"** Wally added

 **"Did you notice any strange behavior or something that would appear to you as odd, before he came over to our earth the second time?"** Caitlin asked herself.

 **"Nothing out of the ordinary. He was surprisingly cool about me and Wally moving in together, but I suspect it's because of something you two said to him, not because of his good nature"** Jesse replied.

 **"There was one weird thing, now that you mention it"** Wally remembered something **"That Tuesday I caught him walking around the lab with two drumsticks, like he was trying to learn how to play drums. I saw his moves, they seemed kind of sick. I thought it unusual that your dad would be so open as to actually try to learn something related to music"**

 **"Wait, you said Tuesday?"** Barry looked at him strangely and Wally nodded. **"Wally, that's not possible, he came back to our earth Monday to help with the Turtle issue. Tuesday he was still there, I think he left on Thursday"**

 **"Are you sure about that?"** Jesse asked making a strange face.

 **"Pretty sure and we know for a fact that the time spent here is about the same as our own Earth, which begs the question, who was that other man that was in here. You are right, Wally, I don't see Harry trying to learn how to play drums. I see him as more of a bass man myself"** Caitlin replied almost immediately.

 **"That means we have an intruder. Cisco, can you pull up the security footage from back then?"** Barry instantly asked.

 **"Not from here, I don't understand why Harry designed this system like he did. The footage can only be accessed from the server room via direct connection or from the security chief's office, which now seems to have a biometric lock on it which is permanently closed"** The engineer responded tinkering with the consoles.

 **"Bette, we're coming to you. We might have something"** Barry told her and the four speedsters flashed down to the server room where Bette, hearing their discussion as already ruffling through that day's security footage.

The person they saw was definitely not Harry. He had a little hat on top of his head, he actually smiled and while wondering through the halls he started a little dance as well. The drumsticks were there as well just like Wally had said earlier.

 **"Yeah I forgot the hat too. To be fair nothing looked stranger than the drumsticks he was carrying, that's why I must have blocked it out"** Wally told them

 **"Right, so we have yet another Wells. Which might explain the breaches that have been appearing here and on our earth. This must be yet another doppelganger from another parallel dimension. Can you see what he did and if he took anything?"** Caitlin asked pretty bluntly. Bette searched frantically until they managed to see a string of video that showed **"Wells"** coming into a room, then disappearing, then coming back into the room and so on

 **"Someone cycled the video. Do you have any idea what's in that room, Jesse?"** Bette asked looking at the speedster.

 **"That's the room we keep the radioactive isotopes to power the reactor that's under STAR Labs. You guys have one too right?"** Jesse replied.

 **"Yeah, except ours was never activated, we still use the power from the grid. We thought having a nuclear reactor under STAR was not a good idea in case … you know, it went kaboom"** Barry explained.

 **"I see. But why would he take the radioactive material with him?"** Wally inquired

 **"It's still just that. Maybe whoever hired him wants to build a bomb of some description? Imagine the backlash against STAR when whoever makes that bomb says where he got the components. Not only you had the same particle accelerator explosion here, a nuclear one would totally kill STAR Labs now"** Caitlin explained, she knew that the public opinion could make or break any sort of firm.

 **"That would be true. But my dad is not the most popular man anyway here. Why would someone go that far to smear STAR and even kill him"** Jesse inquired making a point.

 **"I think it's time we call in some reinforcements. We do have two people that can and have shown before they can help. Can you get me the number for the CCPD Crime Lab? It's time we bring them in on this"** Barry decided. Jesse pulled up a number and Caitlin got Wally's phone and dialed.

 **"Detective Snow-Allen"** A voice she recognized came from the other side.

 **"Snow- Allen, huh? I didn't think I would want to hyphenate in any universe"** Caitlin chuckled

 **"Frost"** the voice on the other side immediately recognized who she was talking to

 **"Yep. Hello, Caitlin. Are you guys alone?"** Frost responded to her counterpart.

 **"We'll leave a window open and close the door. You can come by whenever you need"** the voice replied.

 **"Wonderful, we'll be right there"** Frost replied and closed the line **"We're going to the CCPD for a bit, see if our doubles can help us in our search for Harry. I would suggest you two keep going through the security files for now"**

 **"I'll continue with the diagnostics on the breach detector then. I'll be in the cortex"** Cisco told them and left. The two speedsters flashed to the CCPD. Their doubles were already waiting for them so this time their appearance didn't surprise them as much as the last time. Except the flashing, which for two people that didn't really see it every day it was still, startling.

 **"So what brings us to our little corner of the multiverse?"** Caitlin's double asked them rather bluntly.

 **"Yea, you guys keep saying that we might not see you ever again, but it seems that you keep popping up anyway"** Barry's double quipped.

 **"We will be coming here as much as our friends need us. So you might see us around quite a few more times"** Caitlin smiled. **"This time we have a little issue. Harry seems to be missing and we don't have a clue as to why or where for that matter. Can you guys shed some light on that?"**

 **"Sure, let me go through his financials and I'll see if I can dig up something"** Barry's double replied going to his workstation.

 **"I see you managed to gain some weight"** Caitlin's double smiled at Frost

 **"Eh well, it's not permanent. It's one of those, it goes away after 9 months deals. Or in my case, 4 months"** Frost smiled at her counterpart.

 **"Oh. I see. You`re pregnant. Congratulations to you two then. Why were you surprised about the whole Snow Allen thing?"** the question came

 **"I didn't think any of me anywhere would want to hyphenate, that's all. We actually had a running joke in our universe, that when we got married and I said I want to hyphenate a black hole would open in the sky because we were playing with the future"** Frost explained almost laughing.

 **"The future?"** Barry's double asked surprised.

 **"First rule of time travel. You don't talk about time travel"** Barry replied smiling. **"Let's just stick to that, for now"**

 **"So your speed gives you that ability as well?"** Caitlin's double asked quite surprised.

 **"Yes, but time travel is dangerous. You can alter just one small thing and you can destroy the present timeline. That's why when we did it, first time it was by accident and the second time we did it because Central City had been turned into a crater"** Caitlin decided not to mention anything about the Wave Rider and a time ship. That was too much to process for anyone who didn't meet the other part of the crew.

 **"Barry, Caitlin. I found something"** Earth 2 Barry told them and they approached his console. **"Seems like Harrison Wells has been travelling, quite a lot in the last two months or so"** Barry called Jesse via their communicators.

 **"Jesse, did your father travel anywhere in the last two months? I didn't seem to remember him mentioning something like that"**

 **"My father? Travel? You have to be kidding Barry, everyone knows him as a recluse, I don't remember the last time when he actually left the lab for anything else than going home."** The speedster replied.

 **"Here's the thing, Barry here showed us some shots of your dad getting on a plane to Africa at least two times in the last month. They were snapped at Central City Airport. So if that isn't your dad then it might be our impostor"** Barry replied to the junior speedster.

 **"What do you mean by impostor?"** Caitlin's double asked quite bluntly.

 **"Harry came to our earth a while back to help us against a metahuman that could slow the world around him. As you might imagine our speed didn't really help. Apparently though, while Harry was on our earth, someone who looked like him strolled into STAR Labs and grabbed a piece of radioactive material, then walked out. Since I know Harry would never do that, the man has to be an impostor"** Barry replied to her.

 **"Yeah, that would definitely not work. Although there might be another option"** Caitlin was reminded by a certain shape shifter that they had encountered early on. **"Remember Hannibal Bates?"**

 **"Ah. Yes, Caitlin can you see if you have sort of records on someone called Hannibal Bates? He was a shapeshifter on our earth, so he could very well be the impostor"** Barry told his wife's double.

 **"We have no one by that name here. Is there a possibility that someone else could have that power though?"** She asked.

 **"Everything is possible, but considering these are parallel earths, the best chance we had of actually finding a shapeshifter were him. There is of course the fact that Iris is a nasty metahuman now, which means the possibilities are endless"** Barry stated and his double looked weirdly at him.

 **"Jesse, isn't the nuclear material at the Labs marked with isotopes?"** Caitlin asked through the comms.

 **"Yes it is. I left Bette and Cisco to take care of their business and got Wally and a Geiger counter and we're following the trail. Let you know when we find something"** the answer came almost immediately.

 **"Did you find anything else on Harry?"** Barry asked his double who was tapping away at his console.

 **"Nothing beyond what I've told you. He has made some purchases as well, but those don't really stand out. They are normal things that a human would buy. Except … he took about a kilo and a half of fruits last week. That's the only thing that stands out in his purchases"** The answer came

 **"Do you have authority to check purchases that were made in the name of STAR Labs?"** Caitlin chimed in

 **"No, sadly, we would need a warrant for that and that data is stored in the Labs mainframe more than likely"** Barry's double replied.

 **"Bette did you catch that?"** Caitlin asked

 **"Yep. On it. I'll have a list for you in a few minutes"** Bette stated

 **"Just out of curiosity, you two are cops. Why don't you help your resident speedsters to catch more criminals then they could do alone and without the information that you have access to?"** Caitlin asked the two

 **"We do help whenever we can, we didn't really like the idea of heroes before, until you two, with those two and the flying girl managed to stop this planet from disintegrating. That was a turning point in our judgement of people like you. Since then whenever they need our help or if we need theirs, we're always here"** Her double replied with a smile.

 **"Guys, this is weird. The radiation disappears in the back of an alley off 22nd and Hoyt"** Wally told them

 **"Why does that location seem familiar?"** Barry voiced his thoughts only to be interrupted by Cisco who was listening in.

 **"Because that is one of the places where the random breaches in our world have been happening. Since it's in an alley there are no cameras and we couldn't see what was being done there"** the engineer reminded them why they knew the location.

 **"So that means someone took nuclear material from this dimension and sent it to ours? But what would be the purpose of that. Both worlds have places you can steal it from. Why cross between worlds with it"** Barry voices his thoughts.

 **"Simple. Because it was the fastest way to get it. A fake Harrison just goes into his own establishment and gets what they need, then they just send it back to our dimension. Since apparently they have that ability. No mess, no fuss"** Barry's double commented.

 **"Anything else you might have found at the scene besides the fact that the radiation trail was gone?"** Caitlin asked the two speedsters that were scouring everything.

 **"We don't really know what to look for. You`re the CSI's. You come take a look"** the voice replied.

 **"Mind if we borrow a kit, we're going to go see if we can find out anything"** Barry asked the couple. Caitlin motioned to just take what they need. The speedsters were out the window and running like bats out of hell till they reached the scene where apparently the nuclear material had disappeared. Jesse and Wally were in their suits looking around while Barry and Caitlin were in civilian clothes.

They started looking around at high speed with Jesse and Wally keeping an eye out for them, so that they didn't get caught. Much to their surprise they found some blood which looked more like something that came from a busted lip more than anything else. It wasn't arterial spray or a gunshot wound, just a few simple droplets somewhere at the side of the alley. At the same spot only a bit to the side they found some hairs that looked like they had been pulled off of someone. By the length they concluded it might have been a woman, but they couldn't be sure.

 **"I hope this yields something. We were lucky to find anything after a week or so here. Of course this could yield anything but we can only hope"** Barry told the other two speedsters. Jesse acknowledged that fact even though her eyes held a glint of hope.

 **"Go back to STAR and see if Bette and Cisco need any sort of help. We're going back to the lab to get these analyzed. We'll let you know what we find out"** Caitlin smiled. The two junior speedsters flashed out and Barry and Caitlin flashed back to the CCPD. Their doubles were hard at work digging into the rest of the information that they could get on Harrison Wells.

 **"Barry, Caitlin, I found something out of the ordinary in what STAR Labs has been buying lately. They seem to need a lot of magnetic coils for some reason and the order doesn't show why, furthermore those same coils are nowhere to be found in the labs. Beside that nothing strange, most of the people that work here keep changing their orders regularly, but most of them, as Jesse has shown me, pertain to their research so they don't classify as odd."** Bette told them through the comms

 **"That is something that indeed stands out. Did you find anything else?"** Barry asked her as they entered the lab starting to analyze the evidence. Their doubles were unwitting witnesses to the dance of lightning that the two speedsters were putting out while doing their job. The way their lightning intertwined and the way they worked together was a sight to behold. Something that had mesmerized quite a few persons before today.

 **"Bette might not, but I have"** Cisco spoke through **"The breach detection system has been hacked and modified. The way this works is as follows. Every time there is a breach that opens in two specific places. That place where you two were now and the location in Africa, the patch that I found either generates another breach and does not show the actual one, either it created a double that appeared at random in Central City, or just suppresses them completely. I cannot rebuild the logs or the data, we have no way of knowing how many times those breaches actually opened. I fixed the system and left a feign, in case that someone is monitoring if it works or not"**

 **"So that is why the detection system was acting up so bad. Good find, Cisco. Can you at least determine what the amount of data was deleted or modified?"** Caitlin asked bluntly.

 **"No, the algorithm that was used to clean the readings overwrote the free space. There is no way to recover the deleted pieces of telemetry"** the engineer replied.

 **"All right. We'll finish here and see what we get. Keep on it"** Barry told them as the two continued to work to process the evidence that they had. It took them 30 minutes go get the genetic code of the blood they found and the hair follicles.

 **"So this is indeed Harry's blood. Which means some sort of fight took place. This hair however has no genetic match in the police database, which means that the person doesn't have any sort of conviction or anything that would have required for her to be fingerprinted or put in the DNA database in the first place"** Barry voiced

 **"Well, she could be considered dead. Remember what happened to Hunter, Harry told us that he couldn't confirm whose genetic code was because Hunter's execution was marked as succeeded. Same thing that happened to Kyle Nimbus in that case with the mob"** Caitlin reminded him.

 **"Does this work the same here?"** Barry asked his double.

 **"Pretty much. I see police evidence and categorization are the same in both worlds, but how would you two know that?"** He replied.

 **"We work as CSI's at our CCPD. We have done that together so for at least ... what 3 years now?"** Barry asked Caitlin

 **"Yeah about 3 years I think. Ever since both of us got out of our comas. There should be a mention that you were working there way before we actually got hit by lightning"** She replied.

 **"Ah the one that gave you your speed. I remember you telling us about that"** Caitlin's double replied.

 **"Jesse, we don't know whose blood this is, if it your dad's or the impostor we saw walking around, but what we found at that crime scene was indeed Harrison Wells' blood"** Barry told the junior speedster through the com.

 **"Was his injury bad?"** the question came.

 **"I would say no. Nothing more than maybe a cracked lip. The splatter pattern wasn't consistent with any sort of head trauma or cut to any major vessel. So the good news is that he might very well be alive and unharmed wherever he is"** Caitlin continued her husband's thoughts

 **"Thank god. At least that is something I am really happy to hear"** Jesse's voice was almost singing with happiness.

 **"Sadly that brings up another possibility which we have not thought about. Harry might not even be here on this world"** Caitlin replied.

 **"You think the fact that you found his blood at the site of that breach might mean that he was taken through it?"** Barry's double asked pretty bluntly.

 **"Pretty much and since Cisco can only track where the breaches he makes go, we are in a bit of a bind. The only way we could do that is if we return to our world and setup a separate surveillance system for the breaches that have appeared there and we wait. If they open in the same place as they did there, Harry might be on our earth, if they don't when we're pretty much up a creek without a paddle"** Barry said with an annoyed tone.

 **"There is the possibility that the person who we saw coming through the breach back on earth 1 has the same powers I have. It might mean that she can open a breach from earth 2 to almost anywhere on earth 1. Which again would put us in quite a crappy situation"** Cisco said through the comms.

 **"Wally, Jesse. Take Cisco to the place of that breach and have him install a small sized camera that will not be spotted. We'll do the same when we go back to our earth. After that we will aggregate the data and find out if the breaches are indeed in the same place or something is different"** Barry almost commanded the two speedsters with a soft but quite convinced tone.

 **"On it"** the answer came and they heard a familiar whoosh through the helmets.

 **"I guess we will need to go back to our universe for now. Take care of yourselves and since Harry isn't around, maybe you two could help the kids out"** Barry smiled at the couple in front of him

 **"All they have to do is ask"** They replied which made Barry and Caitlin smile. The two reminded them of the way they were when it came to helping.

 **"Thank you. We'll let them know they can come to you"** Caitlin smiled at them

 **"You take care of yourself and that child. Barry, I might not have ice powers, but I can sure shoot you if something happens to her"** Caitlin's double made a very clear point, which lead the original to start laughing **"Only fair. You threatened my husband to take care of me, now I'm returning the favor, even though it's obviously clear you can take care of yourself pretty well"** The double started to laugh, prompting the two men to join them. The two speedsters nodded and said goodbye. They flashed back to STAR where Bette was already waiting for them in the Cortex with a flash drive of security footage that she had gotten off the mainframe.

 **"This is all the footage that shows Harry and the Fedora Guy since Christmas. I thought we should take it with us and study it see if we can find some similarities or differences between the two"** Bette told the two speedsters who agreed. A few minutes later, Barry was back joined by Wally and Jesse.

 **"Done, we put a few cameras in the places that I found most accessed from there. WE should go back and do the same at our place"** he explained.

 **"Yes, let's go. We'll come back for the data you guys have after a breach in those areas opens up here. You two can cross over however if the breach opens up in your neck of the woods. One place or the other it doesn't matter, only one occurrence is needed to see if the portals connect"** Barry replied and the two junior speedsters understood what he was saying.

 **"Thank you for the help, you guys. I know we haven't found my dad yet, but I feel like we're a bit closer"** Jesse smiled and gave them all a big hug.

 **"No use in thanking us. We haven't found him yet and you know Harry is our friend. We would have helped regardless if it involved our world or not"** Caitlin replied giving a hug back to Jesse. Cisco put back his glasses and gloves and opened a large breach in the middle of the cortex. The four people stepped through. Wally just held Jesse in his arms, while she calmed down. He was really thankful for the people that would cross universes just to find her dad.


	57. Erasure

The four stepped out of the portal back into the cortex on their own earth. They still had time to go set up the cameras that would keep an eye on their own locations. It didn't take them long to accomplish this task, putting a few high resolution cameras at the spots that the breaches were opened. They were pretty small, which made them perfect for so called _"spying"._ When they returned Cisco activated them and let them record as much as they could.

 **"That's that. I don't think there's much else that we can do. We need to wait for another breach to open and then put the data from the two universes together and see where comes out what"** Cisco told the two.

 **"Yeah. I hate playing the waiting game, but it is how it is"** Barry replied **"Do you two need a ride home?"**

 **"We're fine. My car is in front of the labs anyway"** Bette replied and Cisco nodded to what she said. They were comfortable driving together through the city to get to their apartment.

 **"All right. Good night you two. We'll see you tomorrow"** Caitlin replied and the two speedsters were out the door. They had a small surprise when they arrived in their apartment. Talia was waiting for them.

 **"Hello again, mind if we ask you how you got in here?"** Barry looked at their guest and smiled.

 **"Nothing too hard, climbed on the outside of the building from the floor below"** she told them nonchalantly.

 **"That's good to know. Time we make our windows slippery then"** Caitlin smiled. **"To what do we owe the visit?"**

 **"I forwarded the message you asked me to send last night back to the league. I got an answer back. The contract on you two has been voided, with a small issue. Three of the best assassins we have are already on the way here. The league is trying to recall them, but they might not get the message in time"** She told them.

 **"I see. Did you manage to find out who actually put that contract on us?"** Barry asked

 **"Yes and no. The message was delivered by anonymous carrier, but it seems that the money that was used to pay it came from one of Malcolm Merlyn's old accounts"** Talia replied sitting down

 **"Would it by any chance be this one?"** Barry pulled out his phone and showed her a number. It was the account that he had kept ever since it was used to undercut Mercury.

 **"Yes. That is the one. Where did you two get it?"** she asked quite surprised.

 **"It was used in an attempted takeover of one of our friends firms. Mercury Labs. What do you know about Malcolm Merlyn?"** Caitlin replied while Barry was speeding around and got them something to drink.

 **"The only thing I know about him at this time is that he is dead, which as you realize makes no sense at all to the League, considering someone used his account to pay for this transaction"** she replied keeping her cool demeanor.

 **"We know otherwise, apparently he is very much alive, but in hiding. We have not been able to find out where sadly"** Barry explained as much as he could. He could not tell her that the Legends were the source of that information.

 **"Have you been able to confirm that information?"** Talia inquired all of a sudden being very interested in what the two had to say.

 **"Not as of yet, but the person that gave it to us, is someone we trust implicitly and they had no reason to lie to us about it"** the speedster told her

 **"Very well, then I shall take it at face value as well and start looking for him. The league has a bit of a bone to pick with him"** Talia said with a blank face.

 **"Why? Of course, if you can tell us"** Caitlin smiled at her

 **"I suspect you both know, Oliver killed the last Demon"** They both nodded **"After that happened, Nyssa wanted to disband the league completely and just get on with our lives. The problem was that the ring that Oliver got from my father, the one that the next Demon was supposed to wear, got into Merlyn's hands. By the laws of the assassins, the person who wears that ring is the leader and must be obeyed, but also must guard the ring with his life. If someone challenges him he must accept and win, or die trying. You imagine our surprise when we woke up with him in charge"** Talia started her story.

 **"We can imagine. We had the pleasure of meeting him a while back. When we had some problems with Vandal Savage"** Barry replied **"But we managed to turn him to dust, so that's a non-issue as well"**

 **"Actually you might see him again, Merlyn came back to Nanda Parbat with an urn that contained his ashes. I don't know where he got them, but before Nyssa challenged him and killed him to become the next Demon, the ashes mysteriously disappeared"** The assassin was visibly annoyed by what she had just said.

 **"Great. Last time he turned Central City into a crater. What will it be this time, nuking half the world so he can get to his birdmen?"** Barry face palmed.

 **"I didn't read about Central City turning into a crater. What are you two talking about?"** Talia looked at them crooked.

 **"I'll just leave it at this. First rule of time travel, you don't talk about time travel. You can take from that what you want"** the speedster replied pretty annoyed.

 **"Time… travel?"** she didn't understand what he was talking about.

 **"Doesn't matter. You were saying about 3 of your best hunting us. Do we have any sort of idea when they will arrive in Central City?"** Caitlin inquired quite sternly.

 **"They are already here. I hope these glass windows are bulletproof"** She said.

 **"Yes. Thank you for the heads up. You know their methods. Can you try to reach them before we have to … you know, put an end to their careers?"** Barry asked her.

 **"I will try. You two take care of yourselves until I do"** She nodded and got up to leave. The couple followed her to the elevator **"Good night"**

 **"You take care as well. Good night, Talia"** the couple replied as she left. The couple went to sleep only. The next morning they woke up to a message from Cisco. It had arrived only a few minutes before _"Breach opened on earth 2. Jesse and Wally are coming back to give us the footage"._ The two speedsters went through their morning routine in less than 10 seconds and sped toward STAR. As they entered the Cortex they saw Cisco and Bette already there with Jesse and Wally.

 **"We came as fast as we could. What did you find out?"** Barry asked going over to the large monitors.

 **"The person which we saw disappear does have indeed the powers to open breaches. Last night this happened"** They could see both videos next to each other. In one the woman opened a breach and then jumped out in the same place on earth two. The man that looked like Harrison Wells came and gave her a suitcase then left and she returned to earth 1 then disappeared again.

 **"It appears we were correct in our assumptions. That suitcase can contain anything, but I would bet my shield that it's the stolen radioactive material from STAR"** Caitlin told the group while watching the footage.

 **"More than likely. But what would they need it for?"** Bette asked surprised.

 **"Bomb? If they would need it for power then they would require something like a nuclear reactor to use the premade rods"** Cisco replied.

 **"There is only one place where those rods will fit. Cisco, do we have any surveillance in the area where STAR has its reactor underground?"** Barry inquired

 **"No, why would we need to. That area isn't even functional. It would be a waste of resources to keep it surveilled. Besides, the only entrance to that place is on the gantry level of the accelerator which means they would still have to come in somehow"** the engineer reasoned

 **"So nobody could have gotten in, because we would have seen them on the surveillance monitors and any unauthorized entry would be detected and the alarm would have sounded. Am I correct in assuming that?"** Caitlin looked back at Cisco

 **"Yes. That's perfectly right. However this video gives us another place to check. You two did find blood at the other scene, you should see if you find any evidence of Harry in the alley where the two breaches connect as well"** He replied

 **"Harry was out when they sent him through the breach which means the only thing we need to look for is blood"** Caitlin sped out with her CSI kit and Barry followed immediately after.

 **"So my dad could have indeed been brought back from earth 2 here. I still don't understand why"** Jesse looked at the two that were trying to see if they had enough cameras to go blanket the reactor area.

 **"No clue. Anyway, can you two help us with something while Barry and Caitlin are trying to get some evidence?"** Bette asked.

 **"Sure, what do you need?"** Wally stepped up and held Jesse's hand.

 **"You two are faster than us, can you go to storage and take all the surveillance cameras there and go put a few in the reactor room and the hall that's used for an entrance? Even if that area isn't used, we might need surveillance down there"** the engineer told the two speedsters.

 **"Yea, sure"** they left toward the storage space which held the cameras.

The speedster couple took quite a bit to gather some evidence. They did indeed manage to find some blood at the scene. When they went back to the CCPD to analyze it they found without much surprise that it was indeed Harry's. Since they didn't see the double bleed the blood in itself could have only come from his lip. They raced back to STAR, only to find Cisco and Bette immobile in the Cortex and the alarms blaring. They went to the console and found that the Reactor they had under the building was going into meltdown, it was very close to blowing up. The accelerator had been activated and it was the thing that was draining the reactor enough to make it overload.

Before they managed to lift their heads, they both got hit hard. Jesse and Wally had begun to attack them relentlessly like they had a grudge match with the Allens.

 **"Jesse, Wally!? What's going on with you two?"** Barry yelled at them, but got no answer in return. Caitlin had been struck in the back, but before Wally could deliver another punch she iced up. Barry instantly became angry and without pulling any punches he started to vibrate wildly and went straight at the two junior speedsters with such force that when pinning them against the wall he made an impact mark.

"Don't kill them" Caitlin managed to reply from the back, but Barry had no intention of doing that. She froze them on the spot **_"We need to go see what the hell is going on with the reactor"_** She replied and the two speedsters flashed downstairs in their costumes. Caitlin had her full Frost armor on, her appearance had changed. When they got there, surprise hit them. Harry was working on the reactor.

 **"Harry? What the hell man? Do you want to blow us up?"** Barry voiced his annoyance with the scientist, but he continued his work like he didn't even hear them. The speedster ran toward him to get him away from the controls only to be met by a giant hand that knocked him back with a swing. From the shadows, Grodd appeared. A flurry of mental images and attacks hit the two speedsters making them wince. He was actively trying to take over their minds, but the two were stronger than him. Through their bond they managed to steady one another and purge the images that the gorilla was sending them. Caitlin was really annoyed, the images that assaulted her remembered her of her mother and all the bullshit that had gone on in her life. She threw two ice spears immediately which pinned the gorilla to the wall.

 **"Frost, we need to stop Harry"** Barry sped toward the scientist only to have Grodd step in yet again. Hitting him at an angle that redirected him into a wall.

 **"There is nothing you can do"** Harry spoke, but it was obvious that there weren't his words **"The reactor will explode and everyone in this City will die. They will know pain, suffering and anguish, the same thing I felt as I was being imprisoned here in this facility while they were experimenting on me. People are a plague on this planet. It is time we took care of that. One city at a time"** He looked up and pressed a button causing the reactor to crank up to full power and reach critical mass. A blue vortex appeared in the room and the woman stepped through it taking Grodd with her back. All around them pipes started bursting. Barry and Caitlin saw no other choice but to run.

They managed to exit STAR Labs before a large nuclear explosion took place, a meltdown would not react like this, but the way it acted would imply that there was another bomb in the lab somewhere timed to explode with the reactor. That would in turn open a hole in the ground for all the radiation to seep through. With the shockwave riding their wake, Barry and Caitlin ran as fast as they could, they knew what had to be done and soon enough as they were at the outskirts of the city, they entered what looked like a blue corridor and upon exiting saw themselves that were running at STAR. This was why they returned, their afterimages disappeared and the next place the two stopped were in the Cortex. They were extremely tired, the jump through took a lot out of them. Cisco came in as usual and when he wanted to speak he got cut off.

 **"You came with 20 bars, we need 4 of them each"** Barry told him and the engineer opened the bag and handed the bars over.

 **"You jumped, didn't you?"** He asked quite simply.

 **"Yes, Grodd blew up the city. Is there any way you can build something that would impede the creating of breaches in a finite area?"** Caitlin asked him panting visibly.

 **"In theory it can be done, but why would you need that?"** Cisco looked at the two

 **"He used the disaffected nuclear reactor we have in the basement to do that. We need to shield the labs with anti-breach tech as soon as we can get it. Only leave possibility of breaching in the Cortex where we usually are and that's it. We don't want whoever that woman is to make it inside ever again"** Barry completed Caitlin's thoughts.

 **"I have been working on something like that, ever since I learned about my breach powers. I thought it would be useless if Bette managed to secure the compound if someone can just breach in from another universe"** The engineer replied **"I just haven't had the time to finish it"**

 **"Can you finish it and install it in the reactor room until 4 PM tonight?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"No, I need at least another 3 days to finish the prototype, check if it works, then implement everything that goes with it. I'm not a wizard"** Cisco looked at them rather confused.

 **"Ok. That is something to be done. Before we found out that we can keep Grodd from mind controlling us because of our link, you were in the process of making something that would nullify that. Is it still in the works? Or did you manage to finish it?"** Caitlin concluded

 **"Managed to finish it. Why?"** Cisco didn't ask anything, he knew from the last time the two speedsters jumped that it would be better for them to not say anything about the future except to the person that actually could change it. In this case those persons were them.

 **"You need to make three more. One for you and one for Bette, One for Wally and one for Jesse. Those two attacked us the last time and we don't know what happened if you were knocked out by the speedsters of the gorilla's psionic attacks, but you were lying on the ground and we couldn't get you up"** Barry explained to the engineer.

 **"I assume out earth 2 trip is cancelled?"** she asked and they nodded. **"Ok, I'm going to talk to Jesse and Wally and tell them to come to this earth"**

Half an hour passed and Bette with Cisco as well as Jesse and Wally were back in the cortex. The two junior speedsters were kind of surprised to see that they have been recalled.

 **"We found Harry. He is not on your earth, somehow he got back to ours. When he got back there he was kidnapped and brought back here by someone that shares Cisco's breaching ability"** Caitlin told them as Barry simply went out and started to bug the reactor room which thankfully was still empty.

 **"How do you know?"** Jesse asked surprised that they barely went home and the two speedsters called them back with a solution.

 **"We've already lived this day through. Grodd blew up Central City here and we had to jump back. He used some radioactive material that a fake Harry stole from the labs in your world to start the nuclear reactor here. When it overloaded, we saw something like an explosion and everything went to shit"** Caitlin explained what had happened. The two were almost frozen, Barry and Caitlin had told them that it was possible to run back in time, but they had never managed to do it. They weren't fast enough.

 **"What can we do?"** Jesse asked instantly.

 **"Did you or Harry had any run ins with Grodd before?"** The question came from Barry who was back in the cortex connecting all the cameras from the reactor room to the general monitoring system that was in the lab.

 **"Not us, dad isn't here so we can't ask him either"** Jesse replied.

 **"We heard something about a gorilla that was sentient and a borderline genius, from Harry, but beside that nothing"** Wally added to what she said.

 **"That's about right. With the added bonus that he's a telepath, has super strength, has a very resilient body, can take over your mind and attack you with images that will paralyze you"** Caitlin told the two speedsters that were shocked by what they heard.

 **"A mind control gorilla. Great. Do we know anything that will counter him?"** Wally almost face palmed when he heard what the simian could do.

 **"Cisco has developed something that might counteract his mind control. Barry and I don't need it because of our bond. Our minds fight as one and he has never managed to take control of any of us. The four of you however will have to wear dampeners. The last time we had a fight and we had to freeze you to a wall to get to him, which gave him enough time to blow up the reactor"** Caitlin replied.

 **"We don't know where they are at the present time. We do know where they will be tonight, around 7 PM. Down in the reactor room trying to blow us all to bits."** Barry added to what his wife just said.

 **"But where was my dad at the time?"** Jesse asked the two.

 **"He was with Grodd. I suspect the Gorilla didn't have any idea how to actually start a nuclear reactor that has been custom designed to power the building. So he mind controlled the man who knew. Our reactor is probably very similar to the one that STAR Labs on earth 2 has, which explains why Harry was able to start it"** Barry explained.

 **"That's why you said he would be here. Now it makes sense. If he disappeared then the materials and everything he would need, Harry would know about them."** Wally commented.

 **"Precisely. For now, go back to Earth 2. Keep an eye on these places. Put some cameras up"** Caitlin showed them some location around the city **"The breaches come out in those points. Some we already know that are from this universe, some not yet. WE do not have any way to stop them from leaving, so if they make a breach to move back to earth 2 at least you'll have an eye on them"**

 **"Do NOT, I repeat DO NOT engage Grodd without coming back here to get the circlets. He will mind control you and you might end up hurting each other or even worse. Understand you two?"** Barry had a commanding demeanor.

 **"We understand"** Cisco made them a breach and they were gone back to earth 2 to plant the cameras. The two speedsters sat and waited while Cisco was working on the circlets. They decided to go out to the city and patrol the places where the breaches had appeared before. The cameras were set up just like last time, but since they already had the knowledge that the breaches were indeed connecting there and earth 2, it was a good chance of them catching Grodd and Harry before they managed to get into the lab.

The two thought that they would start their plan at 7 Pm but then they realized that it would have had to be started way earlier, the preparations to cold start a nuclear reactor were not few. Barry decided to take a fast lesson on how that would be done, Caitlin joining him in reading everything they could find on how a nuclear reactor would function. Cisco was working as fast as he could and after a few hours he produced two circlets that would dampen the mind control powers of the gorilla. He and Bette put them on immediately since they had no idea when their guest would arrive.

Around 5 PM alarms started to flash in the cortex. There was a breach that opened in the reactor room and the four in the cortex could see three people. Harry, Grodd and the woman that was responsible for creating those breaches. The two started to work immediately on the reactor, however the two speedsters did not jump in immediately. They thought it would be a good idea to have a backup power supply so they let the scientist and the gorilla do everything they needed to make sure the reactor has fuel, has power, has water, because even if they did want to provoke a meltdown the security features required a certain water pressure to disengage. They had of course something else that would stop their plan. Now that they knew what it was, there was a switch outside the reactor room, something that was made to cut the power that went in our out, in the case of meltdown more than likely being able to stop everything.

The moment they engaged the startup procedure, the power in the room failed and they were all left in darkness. Flash and Frost rushed the room instantly. She got him first dodging by a punch that the gorilla threw. His psionic attacks were disorienting, but again, could not control them in the slightest. Harry picked up a gun from somewhere and started shooting at Caitlin… She was clad in her armor so that didn't really help at all. While her armor did stop the bullets a few ricocheted off the pipes and two of them hit Harry back in the chest throwing him to the ground. Another stray bullet hit the breach maker in the thigh. Barry ran straight at the gorilla hitting him as hard as he could while Frost was attacking the breach maker.

She seemed extremely nimble, it was like the spikes were sometimes even going through her not only around her. Grodd got up again, being instantly hit by Barry again who sent him flying. He had started to love more and more the increased mass punch that Harry himself thought up.

 **"You`re done, Grodd"** Caitlin spit her words at him making three large spikes that flew in his direction. One hit him rather squarely in the chest while two of them he managed to avoid. He instantly the person near him produced a breach and the two went in. The speedsters were left with an immobile Harry on the ground. Barry picked him up and ran to the cortex putting him in a surgical bed.

 **"Where the hell did he have a gun from? Last time there were no weapons"** Barry said really annoyed as he put a surgical gown on Caitlin and scrubbed

 **"We already know that every time we come back the same actions we do and our experiences might work differently or something completely new might happen. Harry getting shot was one of those results"** She put a surgical gown on him and scrubbed herself. Cisco had been working on the other two circlets for the other speedsters, Bette suited up herself and was ready to help with the surgery.

 **"I know. Let's make sure he doesn't die, while we have saved the city, for now, one of our friends got injured. Talk about karma"** Barry answered with the same annoyance as before.

The two started their surgery on the man that was now bleeding all over the table. They took the bullets out, but their paths were a bit skewed because of the ricochet, one managed to graze his aorta, not enough to rupture it but enough that it could be a problem in the future, the other went through his spline which didn't present such a large danger.

Jesse and Wally flashed into the cortex and were met with a sight they didn't expect. The two speedsters were operating on Harry. Jesse started to cry, Wally making sure he held her close as to not go into the sterilized area.

 **"What happened? Didn't you two say you had it under control?"** She said with a crackling voice.

 **"He had a gun and tried to shoot Caitlin, the bullets ricocheted off her armor and back into him"** Cisco told them. He had been watching everything through the video feeds. The engineer thought that it would have been best that he answered questions and left the medical brigade to make sure Harry made it out of this alive.

 **"How badly is he hurt?"** Wally inquired almost taking Jesse's words out of her mouth.

 **"Bullet grazed the aorta, other bullet in his spline. If we stop the bleeding he should be fine"** Bette responded and smiled at her engineer. The two had the same idea, let Barry and Caitlin do their work.

 **"Enough with the questions. Let these two work, you know they will do everything they can to make sure that Harry is ok"** Cisco cut them both off before they could start asking more **"They're most likely talking in their heads to find out a way to make sure he's fine"** Cisco was of course correct. Since they had surgical masks it was way easier to just talk in their heads.

 ** _"I think we're pretty much done. Bleeding seems to have stopped. Bullets are out"_** Barry told his wife.

 ** _"I don't think we need stitches either. Hit me with a bolt, will you?"_** Caitlin asked him

 ** _"Huh? Sure, but what do you want to do?"_** Barry asked motioning for Bette to step aside.

 ** _"Healing fog. If it works on someone with a large gash in his chest, even if he's human then we know it's potential. I might need to produce two or three and being armor clad in our short battle with Grodd drained me of some of the energy that I had stored, that's why I asked for the bolt"_** the answer came. Barry charged two bolts and touched Caitlin, she in turn stepped aside and produced a cloud of red fog that enveloped Harry.

 **"Why are they stepping away, don't they need to close the large cut on his chest first?"** Wally asked quite surprised.

 **"No, not really. See that red fog? It gives the persons in it accelerated regeneration and healing for as long as it has speed force in it. I know that because it healed a cut on my hand in seconds. I told you to trust them. They know what they're doing"** Cisco told them and both junior speedsters shut up and watched. The fog dissipated, but the cut that they made to get the bullets wasn't fully healed. Caitlin produced another cloud and left Harry in it while the medical brigade were taking off their suits gloves masks and everything that had to do with the surgery. When the second cloud dissipated Harry's vitals returned to normal, the cut that the two had made on his chest had healed completely with not even sign of scarring and he was breathing normally.

 **"There. He should be fine now"** Caitlin smiled at the two that were mute in a corner after Cisco told them in not so many words to shut up and let the doctors work.

 **"Thank you"** Jesse ran and Caitlin and Barry and gave them a large hug. Wally was smirking. It didn't take long for Harry to wake up.

 **"What am I doing back here? Didn't I just leave?"** he inquired opening his eyes and realizing he was not in his own world.

 **"Take it easy, Harry. You've been shot. What do you remember?"** Barry smiled at him as he was trying to get up and saw his shirt which was full of blood.

 **"You sent me back to earth 2, I walked out of the lab to go home and then some strange woman started attacking me. She had powers like yours, Ramon. After that I don't remember much except waking up here"** he said looking around

 **"You were mind controlled by Grodd. He had someone that looked like you go into STAR labs on earth two and steal some of the rods that you use for your nuclear reactor. Then came back here and he forced you to bring our nuclear reactor online with the thought of overloading it and making it melt down. He succeeded"** Barry told him nonchalantly.

 **"What do you mean he succeeded, I can see everyone is all right"** He looked at them with a surprised face not understanding what they were saying.

 **"He succeeded. We had to jump back to save the city. The first time around we didn't catch him and the nuclear explosion poisoned the city with radiation, the ensuing meltdown spreading it into the air"** Caitlin explained to the scientist.

 **"Ah. So you time travelled to save the city. Aren't you going to be in trouble for that? I seem to remember your double being severely punished for the same thing"** Harry asked who had managed to stand helped by Jesse.

 **"Not the same thing. The Speed Force isn't a malevolent being. He jumped back to change the timeline for himself and for us. We didn't do it for us, we did it for the city"** Barry explained how that went.

 **"Did you two manage to see where Grodd got out?"** Caitlin turned to the two junior speedsters.

 **"Grodd didn't get out on our earth. We put surveillance where you showed us"** Wally replied making Caitlin wince.

 **"Wonderful, which means another earth now has a mind control able gorilla on their hands. That is going to be a pain in the ass"**

 **"Doesn't matter. Welcome back, Harry. Glad we could get the bullets out of you"** Barry smiled.

 **"Thanks for the save. Sorry for helping Grodd blow up your city"** he replied. They all knew it wasn't his fault but he apologized anyway.

Harry decided to stay and help Cisco with the anti-breaching technology. Once finished he would install in in the STAR Labs on earth two as well so he could prevent what happened here back there. Jesse and Wally returned to their earth and promised to keep an eye on the breaches and let them know if something would turn up.


	58. Mirrors

A while had passed since Grodd tried to blow up the city. Caitlin was still doing weekly trials to see if she could keep up with Barry in the field, while that was no problem she had indeed started showing, the child was developed like she would have been around 6 months and a half, although only 4 months had passed. The energy intake remained stable, her having to eat twice of what Barry needed to keep up with him and the drain the baby had on her body. The child however, even after speeding, travelling through time and her using her ice powers almost daily, was as normal as it could be. Barry could not find any sort of irregularities. They finally managed to get the first sonogram out and the two kept it as what they called **"The first picture of our child"**. It was a boy and the two were thinking about names already, but nothing seemed to stick.

Frost had been indeed staying out of the eyes of the people for the last two months. They knew she was there as evidenced from the silver blue lightning that was zipping around near the usual orange that was the Flash, but she didn't really stay in one place for people to get a look at her. That was normal, the two speedsters had discussed this and they didn't want her to be seen now that her suit had a large bulge in the front.

She had started to master using her modified powers while training with Barry, She could now use the first version of the armor, which was weaker, but it was hidden by her suit and thus wasn't noticed, or the second version that came over her suit and made her a veritable _"Maiden of ice"_. Caitlin had used that for a few times in fights and now the papers were calling her that too. She didn't mind, she loved using that type because it allowed her and Barry to fly together. Something they both enjoyed immensely.

They had thought of something in advance and came to a conclusion. Their child would have a more ordinary life his first few years if he had no speed. To this effect they talked to Cisco one day while they were in the Cortex doing stuff as they would do every day.

 **"Cisco, we were thinking. Do you still have the plans for the speed dampener that we used on Zoom?"** Caitlin asked the engineer.

 **"Yes, I still do, why?"** he inquired.

 **"We want you to build something for our child. Barry managed to get a small sample of tissue from him and we managed to confirm that while we don't know what kind of other powers he might have, he is sure to be a speedster. When you have time, before he is born preferably, we would like you to build a speed dampener for him"** Caitlin told the engineer.

 **"A speed dampener? Oh. You want him to be normal until he is old enough to control his powers and not get himself hurt"** Cisco realized why she would ask him that.

 **"Pretty much. Can you build something like that?"** Barry responded from the other side of the room.

 **"I don't have to. You can expose him to the nanites we have at the lab. They are already constructed to dampen or eliminate speed and for when you go home with him, I can have a little necklace that will keep the nanites active in his system. That way until you deactivate the necklace, because it will have at least a few hundred meters range so in case he takes it off, he doesn't speed in a wall, he will be as normal as can be. After we find out what his other powers are, I can put in the necklace a power suppressor just like I did with your earrings, Caitlin. That way when you think he is ready and can learn to control his powers, just deactivate it and he will have them back almost instantly"** The engineer looked at the two while voicing his thoughts.

 **"Wait, it can't be that simple, can it?"** Barry looked at the engineer quite surprised.

 **"We will have to make sure the nanites don't harm the little tyke, or stunt his growth, but if that's ok then yes, it is just that simple."** Cisco replied smiling widely. Barry and Caitlin looked at the engineer and were not surprised to see how much he cared for their child. He wanted his own children, but in a regular checkup that Barry gave Bette they found out that when the bomb particulate fused with her body it made it in such a way that she could not have kids. She had been rendered infertile. That was a very big disappointment for the usually happy Cisco, the two speedsters including Bette working to get him out of his slump. Barry and Caitlin promised him that they would try to find a way to help Bette. She agreed, While Barry talked with Cisco, Caitlin had an even larger battle with Bette's depression. She wanted a family as much as Cisco did and sometimes ended up cursing her body for the simple fact that she couldn't have kids. That had dragged on for a bit, so the two speedsters had begun a project that would try to help her. The fact that someone was actually working on the problem managed to get Cisco and Bette out of their depression and back to nearly their original selves.

 **"So if the nanites work, then that's that. What if they don't work?"** Barry just asked straight out.

 **"Then I will build you a speed dampener. We can keep him here at the labs under the nanites for a few days until I can finish that. No big problem"** The engineer replied

 **"Thanks, Cisco"** the speedster said and the one mentioned wanted to say something but got cut off **"Yes, I know you told me that what I need built, whenever, wherever you'll do it. But that doesn't mean I can't say thank you. You'll have to get used to that"** Cisco was stunted that Barry had read him so well, but nodded with a large smile. Caitlin's phone rang.

 **"Hey, Barry, Caitlin. We kind of need some CSI power here. Mind taking a stroll to the art gallery?"** Joe asked form the other line.

 **"Not at all. Be there shortly"** Barry smiled and got a CSI kit, took Caitlin's hand and they both flashed out. Ever since the police had been told that if they need a CSI the best way was to call those two directly, they had always kept at least two fully stocked CSI kits in the cortex so they didn't need to go back for one at the lab. Most of the police knew by now about their secret identities, so when detectives called for them, they would not even be remotely surprised to see them simply pop in. They would be more careful with outside crime scenes that had bystanders, but with inside ones like the art gallery, they just flashed in directly stopping near Joe with a gust of wind. Patty and Eddie were there as well.

 **"We have a little problem. Someone managed to steal 3 paintings from a locked gallery, killed a guard and escaped"** Joe told the two

 **"Cait, do we still have rock salt and that sawed off shotgun in your car?"** Barry started to chuckle.

 **"Yea, but we don't have the car, we came here on foot, remember?"** she started to laugh prompting weird looks from the three detectives.

 **"You do watch too much Netflix"** Patty finally replied after getting everyone out of the building except them. She had gotten used to them doing they work at high speeds and for that she knew that nobody had to be around.

 **"I find this interesting, why would there be blood on a mirror shard. Something equally strange is the fact that there is a broken mirror here. I mean why kill the guard and steal the paintings then stop to break a mirror and turn another face down, that's just weird"** Caitlin spoke.

 **"Maybe the guy is ugly as hell"** Patty replied and they started to laugh again.

 **"So what can you tell us about this whole thing?"** Barry and Caitlin started to flash around looking for evidence.

 **"Nothing much. There was an art expo here last night featuring two very rare Monet paintings. There were supposed to be at least 2 guards here overnight, but we could only find one. The man that was shot, the other is MIA"** Eddie replied to their question.

 **"Is this the man?"** Barry turned the mirror that was face down. Inside it there was an image of a man that was shot as well and a piece of it was missing. He noticed that was on the ground and had blood on it.

 **"I think so yes. What happened there, is he in the mirror?"** Parry asked surprised at this new development.

 **"It looks like it. We're definitely dealing with a metahuman. I wouldn't venture to guess his powers, but at least one of them is trapping people in mirrors"** Caitlin replied

 **"Wonderful, so we have the body, but we do not. How are we going to find anything about that guy?"** Eddie said visibly annoyed.

 **"We have the evidence on the first body, you guys can call the coroners to take him to the morgue. We'll take the mirror back to STAR and see if we can come up with anything. It does seem indeed rather strange"** Barry managed to utter after looking at the man in the mirror for a little bit.

 **"All right. Call us when you have something. If you need evidence off the body then it's going to be at the morgue"** Patty told them. She had been more open and friendly after she had found out who the two were. Way back when she first met them, while wondering what they were doing helping, she still thought badly about rich people somewhere in the back of her head. That changed when she found out their secret, she suddenly realized that they were helping the city and the country via the labs, while still finding time to work pro bono for the CCPD. She had found out from Singh that they refused their paychecks once they found out how much money they had. Even contributing to the police fund for widows and orphans a few times.

 **"Will do"** Barry smiled and the two flashed out going back to the Cortex having the large mirror that contained the second body in tow. Cisco made a really strange face when he saw why they brought it in.

 **"That is so cool. So there's a metahuman that can trap you in a mirror, now?"** the engineer smiled

 **"Yes, but that isn't cool in the slightest. We need that body to see if we can get more evidence off of it"** Caitlin replied to him **"Do you have any ideas how to get him out of there?"**

 **"I think you should call Tina and see if she has any ideas. This seems to me like it's more her area of expertise. Seems like there is a totally different dimension behind that mirror which means it might have something to do either with interdimensional travel or wormholes. She would know better"** The engineer gave some advice and the speedster took it. After calling Tina to see if she was free, Barry flashed her back to STAR where she was put face to face with the man in the mirror.

 **"This is what we need your help with. Do you have any idea how we can get him out of there?"** Barry asked pretty bluntly.

 **"Let me study it and see if I can come up with something"** the physicist told them. They left her and went back to the evidence that they had acquired but everything seemed to come up empty, until they tested the blood that was on one of the mirror shards. Their analysis proved that it didn't come from any of the guards and they got lucky when the police DNA profile coughed up a name.

 **"So this blood belongs to a person called Sam Scudder. He used to be a small time thief before the particle accelerator explosion and has not been seen ever since. It seems pretty strange that he decided to show up now, after almost what? Three years?"** Barry told his wife.

 **"Maybe, or maybe he was stuck in some sort of coma like we were. Let me track his movements and financials and we can find out where he's been for the last three years"** She commented and started to type away at one of the consoles. Barry called Eddie and let them know the name of the person whose blood they found at the scene so they could put out an APB.

After a few hours, while Tina was working to see if she can pull the corpse out of the mirror and Caitlin was tracking Scudder's financials and steps for the last three years, Barry realized that he had heard that name somewhere before. It was on a case that Joe worked on a long time ago when he was in college. He had no idea why he would get that random recall at a moment like this.

 **"Barry, I can't find anything on this guy. It's like he has completely disappeared for the last three years. No checks, no receipts, no credit card charges, nothing. Nobody has even seen him to the point his mother put out a missing person report"** Caitlin was amazed

 **"So the guy has been missing for the last 3 years. That's not even uncommon with criminals. You know they go underground when they have the police on their tails"** Barry chuckled but was almost immediately interrupted by Tina.

 **"I think he was stuck in a mirror"** she voiced making the speedsters turn to face her.

 **"Mind explaining?"** Barry smiled at the physicist.

 **"We all know that corpses are supposed to decay. Look at this guy, in a normal world and considering in here the temperature is … well high enough. He should have started to decompose. Nothing of the sort is happening up to the point I think in that dimension time doesn't flow. Which would explain why you can't find him. If the explosion itself put him in a mirror, then for him 3 years would have passed without even realizing"** Tina explained to them her theory.

 **"So we were on point to call you. The mirror is indeed another dimension"** Caitlin stated bluntly

 **"Yes. As far as I can tell, the metahuman can create an Einstein Rosen bridge between that dimension and this one. That in turn would give him the ability to travel through any reflective surface that acts like a mirror"** Tina explained to them.

 **"He can create wormholes in mirrors? That is pretty damn cool"** Cisco smiled form his console

 **"Indeed, Cisco. But if that's the case all we have to do is open the wormhole again to let this guy out from that dimension. Except I don't think I know of a way to open it safely"** She replied a bit bummed out.

 **"Maybe the mirror is a dimension in itself and part of a larger one. What would happen if we stop the entropy to that particular part of the mirror dimension?"** Caitlin had something on her mind.

 **"Nothing. If the mirror held Barry or you, cooling it to absolute zero and you vibrating would let you come out, but with him considering he's dead, I don't think we can get him out of there"** The physicist replied sternly.

 **"Well now at least we know that I can get out of the mirror if I get trapped. Cait can cool it down to absolute zero. If she gets trapped however, I don't know if we can do that."** Barry stated

 **"Well then, I'm going to let you take the point on this one then. If I'm the only one that can get you out, me attacking would be pointless if I get trapped like this guy"** Caitlin replied to her husband's conclusion.

 **"That sounds like a plan. The problem is the police didn't really find where he's hiding, so we will have to sit on it until we do"** Barry acknowledged

 **"At the moment there is nothing for me to do here, which means I'm going back to Mercury, however if one of you gets trapped and there is an actual live subject to try to get out, I suggest you flash me back here"** Tina smiled.

 **"All right. Thank you for the help"** Caitlin replied and Barry was out the door in a few seconds with her in tow taking her back. He arrived a few seconds later with some food for both of them.

 **"Maybe we should take that mirror down to lockup. We don't really have a reason to keep it here now, since we can't take that corpse out"** She told Barry which was eating

 **"I'll take care of it. It's pretty heavy and as far as I know you aren't allowed to lift heavy things"** he gave her a bright smile. Barry took the mirror to the CCPD and then return finding Caitlin fidgeting with some of the devices that Tina had pointed out which might have helped.

 **"So I found out some other things about our Mirror Master"** Cisco came back to the cortex after being gone for a bit **"Apparently he has a girlfriend, which is now locked up in Iron Heights. Think he might try to get her out of there?"**

 **"Mirror Master? Really, Cisco you could have cup with a much cooler name. He might, but how would we know?"** Barry asked.

 **"Maybe we should let the police know to categorize the gifts she gets from out of prison. If she suddenly gets a mirror then … we know what we might be dealing with"** Caitlin reasoned and the two agreed with her. The speedster called Joe and told him to talk with the warden and the guards to go through all her gifts before she receives then, to alert them if she gets something with a reflective surface.

After a few hours the detective called back letting them know that indeed she had received a large mirror as a gift and the guards left it in the Guard post instead of taking it to her as per what he requested. The two flashed immediately to iron heights, only to be put face to face with Mirror Master who had come out of the mirror that was transported inside and shot two guards to get to his girlfriend. As per what they discussed, Flash went ahead to attack the metahuman, Frost staying behind to see if she can do anything for the guards. The two had been shot and she managed to flash them both to a hospital only to come back to a really awkward situation.

Mirror Master was gone. He managed to get out with his girlfriend through the mirror of a compact as she arrived. The worst part was the fact that the Flash was now trapped in the mirror he initially came through. Caitlin took the mirror and raced back to STAR Labs.

 **"Barry, can you hear me in there?"** she yelled at the speedster, he didn't seem to hear her but he was now awake and responsive. She got a notepad from a table _"Are you ok?"_ He nodded yes. _"Should I start to freeze the mirror?"_ he nodded no and put his breath to the other side of the mirror and wrote on the glass

 _"Get Tina"_ the speedster had hope that the doctor could get him out of here. Caitlin raced over to Mercury and returned with the scientist

 **"Now we have a live subject. We need to get him out of there"** she looked at Tina who started to check around the large mirror in which the Flash was trapped.

 **"All right. Let me get some actual measurements see if we can get him out of there"** Tina started to do her job and Caitlin helped her as much as she could. The scientist took out a whiteboard and started to make some calculations that were related to what happened. After about an hour she managed to come up with a solution to what she wanted to do. They had to freeze the mirror to stop the entropy in the dimension and then Barry should vibrate at the frequency of their own dimension to manage to phase out of the mirror. Caitlin managed to relay that information to the man in the mirror via notepad. The fact that sound did not travel through the dimensions was quite annoying, but they managed to get everything across.

Cisco didn't want Caitlin to overuse her powers, so he spent a few hours and made a contraption that would freeze the mirror in a bit of time. They waited a bit and the mirror almost got to the freezing point, but he found out that the minimum required temperature could not be hit with the device that he constructed. Caitlin had to step in, her ice beams cooled the mirror near to absolute zero and everything seemed to stop. She motioned to the flash to start vibrating and after a few minutes they could see a blurred figure coming out of the mirror. It stopped vibrating and Barry reformed from the cloud.

 **"That was really strange. It was like I was floating in nothingness. It reminded me for that large vortex you were in when you were in a coma. Nothing passed, it looked like I didn't really need to breathe either, but I thought that might be a trap. I was alive in that dimension which meant that if I stopped breathing I could die. Thanks for the assist, Tina"** the speedster gave the physicist a large hug.

 **"So what am I? Chopped liver?"** Caitlin looked at her husband and made a sweet pouty face

 **"You? Never. You're my darling wife. Besides a hug is something that I would give Tina. I have another way to thank you"** Barry smiled taking his wife into a large hug and gave her a long beautiful kiss. Tina was smirking widely seeing them. They broke the kiss and Caitlin managed to speak.

 **"That is indeed a special way to thank me. Use that from now on"** she chuckled and Barry gave her a large smirk. Caitlin had turned almost red like she had done almost all the times when her husband had kissed her with that passion. What went on between them had never stopped, the love and the caring that came into being that day when they both decided to give it a try for a new relationship was the same. Sometimes she would remember what her mother told her, the fact that love will die at one point in a relationship and every time she remember she would scoff to herself. She loved Barry and she could never express that completely in words. But she didn't have to, he felt everything that came off her and she felt everything that came off him. Words weren't necessary.

 **"Then I shall. Now we have another problem. We saw that he could trap us in mirrors and the fact that Cisco's device cannot keep the temperature low enough. Which means now more than ever you cannot get trapped, Cait"** he told them with a very stern tone.

 **"Yep. I would however like that you don't get trapped as well. We have to find something that would let us neutralize his powers. I would suspect that the metahuman cuffs would work. But how can we put them on him if he doesn't even stay in one place that long?"** She voiced her concerns about catching the rogue metahuman.

 **"He moves through reflections, right?"** Barry thought about it a bit

 **"We would think so. He needs a reflective surface to make the wormhole to the other dimension. What are you thinking, Barry?"** Tina threw him an inquisitive look.

 **"What happens if everything reflects everything?"** Barry posed an interesting question **"If I make a circle of mirrors that each reflects each other, would he still be able to use his powers? Since the reflection would reflect yet another mirror, that might actually render his powers useless. I hope"**

 **"I can't really answer that. If we had had two mirrors to experiment with that were empty I could try to see if you say is true or false. However it seems that you will need to test that with him"** Tina said pretty bluntly.

 **"We need to find him first. I wanted to put a tracker on him, but I didn't manage before he put me in that mirror. Which means now we have to wait for the police to find him"** Barry said a bit sad

 **"Maybe not, the Einstein Rosen Bridge gives off specific radiation when it's created. We could have the STAR satellites scan the city and give us a location on that specific type. At least we would have an idea where he used his powers last and you guys can take it from there"** Tina looked at Cisco **"If I give you the precise type of radiation that you need to look for, can you calibrate the satellites to look for it?"**

 **"Of course. Tell me what I need to modify"** the engineer told her and she went to the consoles showing him what he should watch out for **"There, we should now be able to detect Mirror Master when he uses his power"**

 **"More waiting. Oh, well. Thank you for the help, Tina, as much as I like looking at Barry I wouldn't want to just look at him in a mirror for the rest of his life"** Caitlin smiled at the physicist giving her a large hug.

 **"No problem. Can one of you give me a ride back to Mercury?"** She asked and before anyone would say yes or no, Barry was already gone taking her along with him. He returned a few seconds later skidding to a stop in the Cortex and ruffling some papers that Cisco had on the console in the center. As they were talking and helping Cisco disassemble the cooling device that was there, an alarm started flashing, the detection system that Tina managed to calibrate for that power picked up something at a carnival site outside the city that had been abandoned for quite a while. The two speedsters flashed over there as fast as they could, taking a pair of metahuman cuffs with him. As usual Frost stayed a bit behind as the Flash went in directly to catch the criminal.

He instantly stepped into a mirror with his girlfriend before Barry could do anything and started to get out of different mirrors and hitting our speedster, he tried to shoot him a couple of times too, but he had enough speed to dodge the bullets. Frost was watching the whole thing also she had given the place a run around and made sure that she was standing in a space with no reflective surfaces. She didn't want to get hit, her protective instinct for the baby had gone into overdrive for the last months or so.

 ** _"What would happen if I start to freeze the mirrors he's travelling through?"_** she asked her husband

 ** _"I really don't know. Maybe the low temperatures would stop him from forming a connection with the mirror dimension? Stay safe, be sure he doesn't hit you and try to freeze a few of his mirrors, that way we can see the effects"_** he replied as he was running around following the guy from mirror to mirror. Frost iced up, the armor covering her body and started to shoot ice beams at the mirrors in which he tried to go through while running from Flash. The first two didn't yield important effect, but the third one, where she had a little more time to get the temperature down, when he went to go through it seemed like he couldn't, he crashed into the mirror and it fell down with him on top.

 ** _"Well it does seem that you had an effect. Bravo, Frost"_** Barry quipped at his wife with a large smile. He started to run around and put the mirrors he found in a circle around him. He wanted to test his theory.

 ** _"Why, thank you, Flash. I try"_** She gave him a smirk. The circle was complete, and he had managed to do what he thought about. Each mirror had its own reflection in at least two other mirrors. The man seemed lost, he tried to go through one, but couldn't. In a second Frost was on him and shackled him with the metahuman cuffs. He was done. His girlfriend however was still trapped in one of the mirrors that he had left her in, asleep.

 **"No, no, no, no. I need to let her out, she will die in there"** the criminal said with a defeated voice.

 **"No, she won't. Time doesn't pass in that dimension and you know that. We'll make sure we put her in a cell just like you so she can serve the rest of her sentence"** Frost told him with a Grin. The two were gone, they reached the CCPD and put Mirror Master in one of the cells. Frost put the mirror with the woman in the lab and she went back to STAR. Barry changed and went to see Joe. He wasn't there, apparently he had something to do at home, so he went to Eddie.

 **"Eddie, we got the guy that robbed the place in the morning. Joe was correct he could manipulate reflective surfaces to get out. Now he's in lockup with a pair of metahuman cuffs on him"** Barry smiled toward his friend.

 **"Nice work. So wait, any sort of reflective surface will give him a way out?"** the detective looked at him quite surprised.

 **"Yes. I suggest you leave him in that cell and when you take him to Iron Heights use the cuffs. A two by two room with nothing reflective should keep him covered until the trial. Also, there is a mirror in the Lab that holds his girlfriend. We can't get her out but, she is alive. You can just have the police put the mirror in a cell and leave her there. She will be in a prison no matter where they put her, just not in the same cell as Mirror Master"** Barry explained.

 **"Won't she die in the mirror?"** the question came almost instantly

 **"No. Time doesn't flow in that dimension. She will be stuck in time until we can figure a way to get her out, or until her boyfriend finishes his sentence and he can get her out himself. Sad, but nothing we can do about it. I barely managed to get out of a mirror by vibrating and that was after Cait brought it to absolute zero. Which as you can imagine she cannot do"** Barry smiled and pointed at the woman in the mirror the turned at Eddie who understood what he was saying.

 **"Thanks nonetheless. Another one of these crazies off the streets. That seems like a win, does it not?"** the detective smiled.

 **"Yes, at least there's that. Take care, Eddie and if you need us for anything you have our numbers. Tell David that we managed to close the case and he doesn't have to worry about anything else"** Barry replied

 **"Will do. You two take care yourselves"** Eddie told him and Barry sped out the door back to STAR Labs. On the way he received yet another message from Caitlin.

 ** _"Hey, mind getting some shrimp, a few dozen donuts, a chocolate cake and some ice cream?"_**

 ** _"Of course not. You`re hungry aren't you?"_** she smiled to himself.

 ** _"You know I am. Ever since I became pregnant I've been eating like it's the end of the world"_** the reply came making him chuckle. **_"Also maybe get a pizza and some coffee. Cisco worked his butt off to help us with that freeze machine even if it didn't work, I'm pretty sure he needs some food as well"_**

 ** _"If he's there with you just ask him if he wants anything. Since I have to transport all that food it doesn't matter if I take one more for him"_** the speedster responded

 ** _"Yes. He wants a pizza and some coffee"_** The answer came rather fast. Making the speedster chuckle. He remembered the pun Cisco always used to make about that. He was his boss and he was bringing him food. Not like that ever matter, their tight knit group of friends never had a boss per say. They were all together and that was what made them strong and able to stand all adversity and all the bad things that kept happening in the city. He was happy about that, but the happiest he had ever been was because of the child. Caitlin was due somewhere in the next month, if the rapid growth kept its rhythm and he was excited as all hell to have this child with his beautiful wife. The start of their very own family.

* * *

AN : Hello everyone. I will be taking two weeks leave from anything related to work and writing and enjoy a two weeks vacation with my family. So enjoy my double post today

PS : In case you get bored or need a bit of a fix, there is a link in my profile that will take you to where i have posted some of my other works that are not related to fanfiction. Have a great weekend.


	59. Darkness

Strange events had started to happen around the city. At first there was a large tornado that appeared in Central City Park, straight out of nowhere. The second was a rain of black snow that happened along the marina. The third event was an earthquake that seemingly came out of nowhere. Central City was not on any known faults so you can imagine the surprise that our speedsters had. The strange thing about that earthquake was the fact that it produced a 17 mile crack through the city. While it was small and not deep at all the length was something completely not expected. The most recent one however had them baffled. Half the city had been covered in blood from a rain that lasted only around 10 minutes. They had gotten evidence from all the sites and as much of it as they could and since there was a lot of it, they decided to use STAR to analyze it. Since the two had a contract with the CCPD to do that, nothing was lost.

Barry was in a corner processing evidence from the black snow event. It seemed normal at first glance, but after a few tests, the results that came to life had him baffled.

 **"Cait, come check this out. Is this what I think it is?"** he pointed toward the spectroscope.

 **"That's … tar. So wait, the black snow isn't snow at all?"** she replied with an equally surprised face.

 **"No. it seems to be frozen tar, but that substance freezes very hard, and to even have it in snowflake format? That seems like something impossible to me"** Barry replied looking at it again

 **"Try to see if you can get any idea where that came from by looking at the components it has"** Caitlin tried to give him some advice. Barry took it, even though he wanted to do something else he realized that what his wife said had merit. After a while, he discovered absolutely nothing. The labs had samples from across the world, each with its specific blend of minerals in the tar. That was like a fingerprint, they could find out where the tar came with almost 100% certainty. This however had no minerals in it. It was just tar and nothing else.

 **"This can't be right. This tar has no extraneous substances in it. I can't get any sort of fix as to what its original location might be"** Barry said with an amazed look on his face. Caitlin followed seeing the results of his tests. Over the years she had gotten to trust his work and his professionalism completely up to a point she would never as for a second analysis that she would do herself.

 **"Might probably come from somewhere without any sort of rocks in the mix?"** she asked hoping that Barry would know more.

 **"I'm not a geologist, but this much I know. In any kind of tar there should be at least one kind of foreign substance, be it mineral or biologic, if there were any animals that were trapped in the pit that it came from. Which means something as clean as this should not even exist. Not to mention the fact that it was frozen into snowflakes. I'm at a complete loss here, Cait"** He replied to her with wide eyes. The way he was looking at her showed the fact that he was lost as to the cause of the black snow.

 **"That's all we can get out of that. I'm going to start analyzing the blood from the rain"** Caitlin smiled and went back to work. Barry decided to go out and map where the crack that the earthquake produced passed through. He took his suit and started running alongside it.

 **"Cisco, are you monitoring my movements?"** he asked through the comms.

 **"Yes, you`re drawing a picture on the map. Keep going, when you return we'll see what the hell this is"** the engineer replied and Barry took off again. After about 5 minutes of tracing the crack and helping some people on the way which had some minor problems with a fire, he returned to the cortex and saw that the line he drew was a pentagram.

 **"This isn't disturbing at all"** Cisco looked at his with a surprised face.

 **"It's not Satanism Cisco, come on. The pentagram was usually a symbol of protection"** Barry told him without thinking and turned to see the engineer giving him the stink eye.

 **"I'm disappointed in you, Cisco. You watch almost all the series and anime and yet you can't remember such a basic thing?"** Caitlin quipped from the other side of the cortex making him smile.

 **"Yes, such a basic thing, now excuse me while I go paint a few on the outside of this lab"** He started to laugh while saying something like that.

 **"If you think that's weird, then come check this out"** Caitlin told the two while pointing at the blood she had on a slide in the microscope. Cisco took a look first, he had no medical knowledge, but even he knew how blood should look like. Barry took a look second and was a bit stuck. What he saw was impossible. That word kept cropping up more and more as the time passed, in this instance however something gave him the chills.

 **"If that's blood, then where are the cells? What's with those yellow lines that keep floating around?"** he asked quite straight forward.

 **"That's the point. There aren't any. The liquid still registers as blood, but it's entirely made out of the material that occurs in a blood cell, there are no individual cells just one large pile of mush. If that doesn't surprise you then this will. I tried to get a sample of DNA from the liquid. Check this out"** Caitlin pointed at the DNA sequences. Barry was surprised yet again. They were missing nucleotides. It was like someone played make the block disappear. It still looked like DNA but the structure was completely out of whack

 **"So, about those yellow lines?"** Barry inquired.

 **"If I told you that was sulfur, what would be the first thing that would pop in your brains?"** she told the two that were gawking at what she had just found.

 **"Demons. But those are … in the movies… right? I mean sure I know I watched Supernatural a lot but that has to be a coincidence. Sulfur in something that looks like blood that was raining from the sky, that would totally be some sign of some demonic presence"** Barry spoke and could almost not believe the words coming out of his mouth.

 **"Magic is real, we saw that when we were fighting Darhk, why wouldn't demons be real? I mean as an extension of everything if magic is real that means the fight between good and evil is real which means, angels and demons should be real"** Caitlin tried to rationalize everything in her head, but the more words that came out of her mouth the more out there it all sounded.

 **"Of course these could be totally random events that happened and have no tie in with anything of the sort so, we might just be overthinking everything"** Barry offered a bitter smile. That might have worked for an excuse, until Bette, who was on her way back to STAR in her car, called them.

 **"Did you look outside?"** she asked with a little fear in her voice.

 **"No, what's the matter, don't tell me there's another blood rain on the horizon"** Barry said with a really alarmed voice.

 **"Well it's raining all right, but not blood. It's raining frogs"** she managed to say and Barry literally froze

 **"Damn. Get to the labs as fast as possible. Try to get a frog for a sample if you can for us to examine"** Caitlin replied through the line

 **"Will try to. I'm a bit ... creeped out by them so it might take me a while"** she replied. Barry sped out and came back with a frog.

 **"You don't have to. I got one for you. Just get here, we need to see what the hell is going on. Also take care you don't crash. These things are slippery"** Barry smiled at Cisco who mouthed a silent thank you **"Here you go, Cait. See if you can find out anything from this. Whatever it is I need to go call Oliver, I think I know who we need to bring in"**

 **"John Constantine, huh?"** Caitlin remembered

 **"Yes"** The speedster replied and dialed in the archer **"Oliver, did you see the strange things that are happening in Central?"** He asked his friend.

 **"Yea. It was all over the news, black snow and a rain of blood? What the hell is going on there, Barry?"** the archer inquired.

 **"The black snow was actually frozen tar. The blood, that was even stranger, it had no blood cells, but instead of that it had sulfur and the DNA was damaged, almost like someone picked and chose which parts to take out, like a puzzle of unknown description"** The speedster replied to the question at hand. **"I don't know if the news there told anything about the earthquake that we had either"**

 **"No, we didn't hear of any earthquake, are you guys all right?"** Ollie's voice sounded worried.

 **"We're fine, but the event created a 17 mile long crack through the city. Which wouldn't you know it, when I traced it on a map with my speed it turned out to be a pentagram"** Barry explained **"By what happened here I think you already know why I'm calling"**

 **"Yeah, I thought you might need him. I'll get in touch with John and be on the first jet out of here. I'll let you know to come get us when we land."** The archer replied.

 **"You`re coming too?"** Barry was surprised.

 **"Yes, after the Darhk affair John hooked me up with some magic protection that I now have tattooed on my body. I should be able to help when that is concerned. You two, even with all your power might need to sit this one out"** Ollie explained.

 **"We'll see about that, call us when you arrive"** Barry said into the phone and the closed the line going back to Caitlin. She was looking really strange at the frog that he had just brought back.

 **"Anything?"** she asked her and she pointed at a husk

 **"This frog seems alive, it even acts alive, but as you can see it's hollow. It has no internal organs, no blood, no nothing. It's a sack of skin with nothing underneath. But even so, it acts like it is alive which is really creepy"** She replied

 **"Right. Frog rain, blood, pentagrams, this is straight out of the x files"** Cisco looked at the two who chuckled at his remark

 **"It might be out of what you say, but this isn't doable by any scientific means, which can only leave magic. Did you talk to Oliver?"** Caitlin looked at her husband

 **"Yea. Him and Constantine will be on a plane as fast as he can get to him"** The reply came.

 **"Wouldn't it be easier if we just go get them? You know we can get to STAR City and back in less than 7 minutes"** Caitlin told him and he realized she was right.

 **"Aren't you going to be tired after such a run? You`re still 6 months pregnant you know"** Barry expressed his concern for his wife

 **"I can handle it, especially with the bars that Cisco makes. That's not a problem"** she smiled brightly at him. His phone rang again. It was Oliver.

 **"Barry, Constantine is already in Central City, with another mage called Zatanna. I told them to go to STAR Labs, they should be arriving in an hour or so. I'm getting on the STAR West jet and joining you"** The archer spoke

 **"Don't. I'm coming for you. Stay where you are"** Barry told him and was out the door running like at top speed racing toward Star City. After 10 or so minutes the Flash was back with the Green Arrow in tow. He seemed fine with the trip

 **"No more motion sickness, Oliver?"** Caitlin smiled while he gave her a hug being careful not to hurt the baby.

 **"Keeping your eyes closed is a very good treatment for that. Besides now that you two have this stupid top speed to get to Star City in 3 minutes or less, it's not like I need to keep my eyes closed for very long"** He grinned **"I see you`ve begin to show, huh? How far along?"**

 **"Somewhere in the vicinity of 6 and a half months, Ollie. Barry made sure the child is fine, it does however exhibit all the characteristics of a speedster and the fact that his development is 2 to 3 times faster means that he should be born somewhere in the next month"** Caitlin smiled at the archer. His interest in the child and her health didn't surprise her at all anymore. Oliver was family.

 **"Boy or girl?"** the question came

 **"Boy, apparently"** Barry replied and the alert at the door sounded. Constantine and Zatanna were already here **"Didn't you say in an hour?"**

 **"She can teleport. Which means they could have been here sooner, but they were busy… apparently"** The archer told them. The two speedsters flashed outside and brought the two mages in the cortex.

 **"Hello, Oliver. It's been a dog's age, mate. Who are your friends?"** The blond man with a trench coat asked politely.

 **"These two are Barry and Caitlin Allen. You might have heard of their superhero alter egos though. Flash and Frost"** Ollie introduced them **"This is John Constantine and his, friend, Zatanna"**

 **"Oh, so you two are the people that run really, really fast. Which explains how we got here from the front of the building in the time it took me to blink"** Constantine smiled.

 **"Glad to meet you both"** Barry shook their hands, Caitlin following his gesture **"Can you tell us what the hell is going on in this city? We have had our share of weird happenings but …"** Barry asked them

 **"Tar snow, blood rain, a crack in the ground in the form of a pentagram and hail with frogs that are empty on the inside? Yeah … not that normal"** Caitlin finished.

 **"This is the work of our old teacher. Nicolas Nolan. We were beginners when he started to teach us what magic can truly do, but in his quest for power we were left behind. He is looking for the books of magic. The ultimate source of power in the magic world. They would give him the power to rewrite reality as he sees fit. As much as we loved the man, his conquest for power has only become a race against time. He is aging and he wanted a pact with a demon to make himself immortal. I don't know what drove him to Central City, but the signs that we have seen here mean that he has everything he needs to start the ritual in which to summon the demon which he wants to make a deal with. That can only be done at the next full moon"** Zatanna spoke explaining to the others what could be going on.

 **"So you two came here to put a stop to this I take it. That's why you were both in Central City already"** Barry replied bluntly.

 **"Aye, mate. That's why we managed to arrive here pretty early, except we can't seem to find the bugger"** Constantine replied with his usual British accent.

 **"We can help you scour the city. We have our speed to help, but we do need some sort of clues or things that could restrict the areas we need to look into. The next full moon is tonight and if we don't find him by then, what happens?"** Caitlin inquired the two mages.

 **"The last time someone summoned a demon to make a pact was in 1872 in a city called Chatterwick in England. Everyone in that city was found dead after the ritual was completed. I don't know if it can kill everyone in Central City, but there will be a lot of death. You can be sure of that"** Zatanna continued to explain

 **"I see. So by extension your teacher could kill everyone in this city"** Barry replied.

 **"Indeed. The spell that has to be cast has a few requirements. It needs to be in a city, the summoning of a demon requires a lot of vital essence, which is why there are so many dead. The more powerful the demon, the larger the sacrifice. It must be cast as closest to the sky as possible, which means that they have to be on a high rise somewhere without a roof. The spell has to access the light of the moon. Also it needs at least 20 people to chant the text in order for the psychic energy to mold into a portal"** Constantine replied bluntly. He was reciting that from memory which impressed Zatanna.

 **"Does it require some sort of landmark or tools? Something that we might find on said roof?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"Yes. A brazier in which to burn the required materials when the spell begins"** Zatanna concluded.

 **"That should be plenty for us to work with"** Caitlin smile and flashed into her suit, her appearance changed turning into her full iced persona and wings sprouted from her back, The transformation left Oliver with his jaw on the floor. He had not seen this iteration of her armor. **"Barry, I'm going to take to the air and relay to you what are the highest buildings I can see. You can take the ground and see if you find anything interesting in those buildings, or a brazier on top"**

 **"You really need to explain those to me when we finish with this"** Oliver pointed at her changed appearance.

 **"It's a pretty short story Ollie, but sure why not"** She smiled. Barry was in his suit immediately after.

 **"What do we do if we find the location you two are interested in?"** He asked the two mages.

 **"We need to work a counter spell on the location so that when he tries, the backlash will be contained. They will try to summon the demon, our containment spell will trap them and they will be killed along with anyone on that roof. But since they will not have the energy required to feed the demon summoning, the portal will then close and that will be that"** Constantine explained the plan.

 **"Just show us where, I can teleport me and John anywhere in this city without much trouble"** Zatanna told them

 **"What happens if we discover more than one location with the conditions you just said?"** Caitlin asked making sure that she had covered that possibility.

 **"Then we will have to do the spell at all the locations that you find. The problem is me and John don't have too much in the way of power since we have been hunting in the city, which translates to we can only to maybe 3 or 4 of those spells. Try to be precise in what you find"** Zatanna explained. The two speedsters nodded and left. As they walked out Frost took to the sky and started to scan the city for buildings the two mages had told them.

 **"Oliver, nice league of super friends you have"** Constantine chuckled while they were waiting.

 **"John, they are more than friends, they are family. They have helped me with a lot of stuff since we last met and I have rendered my assistance to them as many times as I could"** The archer smiled **"Nobody is stopping you to become part of that family, those two can pretty much take care of everything metahuman and more, but we can always use a magic expert that handles, you know, angels, demons, imps or anything of the sort"**

 **"You know me, Oliver. I've always been a loner. That doesn't mean that if you need my help I won't offer it. Just not much about being part of a team, you know?"** the Englishman told them as they were walking out so they could smoke. It was strange to see him do that because Zatanna as well as Oliver knew that he didn't really care about that.

 **"Me on the other hand, would really like to help whenever and if magic is involved. Oliver, give those two my number and if they ever need me just call. What you guys have is something that could potentially save the country and this world. Those two are powerful, extremely powerful even and they haven't even discovered their true potential yet. I would be glad to be able to help with any magic related stuff if they need it"** Zatanna smiled. She wasn't the one to be part of a team either, but seeing the Green Arrow, a loner by default, being so close with other superheroes and helping one another had sparked a thought in her mind.

 **"Are you trying to undercut me, love?"** Constantine smirked with his snarky accent looking at Zatanna

 **"Not a chance, John. But two mages are always better than one in any situation. Which is why if the circumstances are dire, expect a call directly from me with a request for help. Maybe with an offer you can't refuse, either"** She gave him a grin and Constantine smiled.

The two speedsters were scouring the city at their highest speed. Caitlin had gotten used to her flight, but her speed was not comparable to what she had on the ground. However the view was precisely what she needed. She looked at the highest buildings in the city and noticed two towers that about the same height with braziers on top.

 **"Barry, I found something"** She was circling one of the buildings. The flash saw her and followed up the stairs.

 **"This looks like a good spot. Are you ok on energy?"** he asked looking at her.

 **"I could use a jolt, if you aren't tired"** she smiled.

 **"Oliver, we found one. We're sending the location now"** Barry told the others and while he waited for the two mages he threw two lightning bolts at Caitlin.

 **"Thanks, that did the trick, I'm going to see if I find anything else. You wait for them and then go to the other building. There is a brazier there as well"** she pointed at the roof of the other one.

 **"All right. Be careful"** Barry replied and in front a him a round symbol appeared starting to grow on the ground. Inside it Zatanna and Constantine appeared.

 **"This is one. There is another one on that building across the way. I'm going with Caitlin to find more, if any"** Barry told the two which nodded and started to cast a blocking spell around the entire roof. The speedster was following his wife on the GPS tracker that was in his bracer display.

 **"Anything else?"** he asked.

 **"No, the rest of the buildings are significantly lower than those two. The only one that would be left would be the tower where we have our house"** She realized what she said.

 **"Maybe, but they cannot get to the roof there. The penthouse is secured and the only roof access is from our own apartment. However you might be right. Let's go check there as well"** Barry replied and started to run toward their home. He ran up the building and much to his surprise there was a brazier on the roof **"Well, shit. How did this piece of rusted metal get up here?"**

 **"No idea, probably magic. Can you destroy it?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"I can try"** Barry started to vibrate touching the iron object which started to vibrate itself. After a little bit, the speedster let go and the brazier disappeared into nothingness. **"Done. I dissolved it."**

 **"John, if I found a brazier and destroyed it, does that mean that the persons will no longer be able to perform the ritual here?"** Barry asked through the comms

 **"That depends, they might not even need it, but if you did destroy it then you have probably alerted the owner of that spell that something is wrong. We did manage to secure those two locations, however. Did you find any others?"** he asked.

 **"Just the one on the top of our apartment which I just destroyed. I hope that's enough, I don't want my home to become possessed with some great evil from beyond"** Barry sounded really annoyed.

 **"I'm going to go and cast a protection spell over there. Show me"** Zatanna spoke and Barry sent the coordinates. After a few seconds the two teleported in.

 **"This seems like a perfect spot for that spell. It won't be when I'm done with it thought"** She smirked and started to cast something to what Constantine referred to as a compound spell. Something that would protect the apartment and the roof from any sort of magic intrusion including teleportation and summoning **"We will need to go somewhere else. Magic is dampened here now which means I cannot cast the spell to teleport us out"**

Barry and Caitlin instantly raced them down the building into an alley which had no magical wards so she could use her powers.

 **"So what do we do now?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"Now we wait. Do you have any sort of flying surveillance?"** John inquired

 **"We can send two drones from STAR to keep an eye on what happens on those two roofs"** Barry replied. Zatanna said a few words and the circle appeared under them teleporting them back to STAR where Barry did what he told them. He called Cisco in to keep an eye on the flying machines.

 **"So you two live in a penthouse on top of a tower in the city. What are you two rich or something?"** the brit looked at them and snickered.

 **"Pretty much yeah. STAR Labs and a few other companies take care of our income"** Barry chuckled.

 **"Oh you two are the owners of STAR? I have heard something about that but never seen your faces. Explains the penthouse then"** Zatanna snickered.

 **"Guys, a lot of people have gathered on one of the roofs that you had me surveil"** Cisco turned on the large monitor in the middle of the room. They could clearly see at least 40 people that were on the second roof that the two mages had put their limiting spell on.

 **"Do we need to worry about what they do while there? Can it have lasting effects on the city?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"No. The spells will be contained in that limiter. If we wouldn't have done that then yes, it would have been possible that the summoning lets loose a horde of smaller tier demons that could, maybe, start to roam the streets as their master is summoned, but in this case, no. that can't happen"** Zatanna explained.

 **"Thank god. We have our hands full with metahumans, we don't even know how to fights demons"** Barry said with a smirk. Zatanna produced two daggers with weird inscriptions on them and handed them to the speedsters.

 **"Those should kill any lower tier demon. With your speed you can probably make fast work of the small fry. If something big is coming then you will need me and John"** she replied.

 **"Thanks. Now that we know demons are real we might actually need these"** Caitlin smiled.

 **"You two can move at the speed of sound and beyond and you couldn't believe that Demons and Angels exist. I find that funny"** Constantine commented.

 **"John, the abilities we have gotten from the Particle accelerator explosion can be explained through hard science. Angels and demons however are more esoteric, something that requires faith. Which I stopped having ever since my mother died"** Barry voiced toward the Englishman the reasons why he couldn't believe.

 **"How about you then?"** John asked Caitlin

 **"I have always been a scientist. Everything that I have done was based on theories and observable facts. What could not be observed, unless it had a theory that explained it, was automatically dismissed. Much like Barry however, I lost my faith when my father died and I was stuck with my mother. Something that still bears bad memories for me to this day"** she responded nonchalantly and saw him nod. Two people that had lost their faith could have never believed in the metaphysical world, unless they were given proof. John knew that what had happened was proof enough. The show was on. The people started to chant something that nobody except the two mages understood. The drones were keeping an eye on the procession that was going on. The figure in the dark cloak started to draw a circle on the ground with a lot of symbols that were unknown to the speedsters and the archer. John did say that he had seen them before except he didn't know what they were used for.

As the chanting continued, the circle seemed to transform into what could have only been described as a gateway. Smaller imp like creatures coming out but being stopped by an invisible wall at the end of the roof. The circle became black, kind of like a portal with fire all around it. From the darkness a large hand seemed to appear and all the people that were chanting started to fall on their knees. Strands of lightning came from the portal and hit everyone in the chest almost like that time their powers had been sucked out by Farooq Gibran. The enclosing spell was holding, everyone that was on the roof started to fall on the ground, the hand kept slowly moving out of the portal, but when the last person was dead, except the man that was in the dark cloak, the spell suddenly fizzled, the hand went back into the dark space and the portal crashed into itself closing and provoking a guys of wind that made the drones lose their position for a moment. As the drones turned, everything was gone, the corpses, the brazier and the man in the dark cloak.

 **"That seems to be it then. The spell worked, it will take Nicolas a while to find new followers that would accept to call a demon and when he does, we'll probably be there to stop him, yet again"** Zatanna smiled

 **"Thank you for the help. Can we reach you if we have more stuff that falls from the sky?"** Barry smiled at the two mages.

 **"Oliver has both out numbers. Get them from him and call us if you come by anything else that would enter in the realm of magic."** Zatanna told the two speedsters.

 **"Also, while the daggers that she gave you can kill smaller tier demons, if you somehow come across something bigger, don't try to take it on alone"** Constantine replied.

 **"Can we take you somewhere?"** Caitlin asked trying to be polite.

 **"No, we can teleport anywhere, remember?"** Zatanna smiled **"Keep in mind what I have said, don't hesitate to call if you have any sort of magical issues"** She said a little incantation and the teleportation circle appeared on the ground and grew taking the two mages with it. Oliver stood in the cortex and grinned.

 **"Looks like I was pretty useless this time"** Oliver grinned realizing that he spent most of the time in the Cortex doing nothing **"So tell me, flying now?"** he looked at Caitlin

 **"Like I said, not a long story. Pregnancy affected my powers. The armor evolved into what you can see now. I can use both variants of it and one allows me to fly. The second thing that was modified was the fact that I can now produce healing fog. A variant of the paralytic fog that I could produce before. I can use both at will again"** She smiled leaving Oliver with his jaw on the ground

 **"Healing fog? Wow that would be pretty useful in a really big fight. I said that and I will say it again, you are so lucky. So now you have a wife that can heal as well as fly. When I thought that I have seen everything out of you, you continue to surprise me. Congrats on the new powers, Caitlin"** He smiled toward her **"Now, can any one of you take me home?"**

 **"Yeah, thank you for the help Ollie, remember you are never useless. Come on, I'll take you home"** Barry smiled and took the archer and left for Star city. Caitlin smiled, she loved when Oliver and Felicity came over. She loved when any of them came over, it was something that came with them being family. They were indeed what you could only have called family.


	60. Innocence

It was a rare moment of peace around the Allen household. STAR West had just released the first version of the chip that saved Felicity, Mercury labs in collaboration with STAR Labs had released the larger version of the power cell that was supposed to power a good part of the armors that were now being manufactured for the CCPD. The two speedsters decided to take a break from it all and go have a lazy weekend at their vacation house.

After everything they decided to invite everyone they could, since most of the people still worked for them and they could very much take a day off. Even though it was weekends Joe and Eddie still had to be on call if necessary. That was of course taken care of. From the gang in Star City only Oliver and Felicity decided to join them, Curtis was busy with the manufacturing of the chip he invented and Diggle and Lyla were off somewhere like always. From earth 2 nobody managed to come, Harry was busy with something he forgot to mention and Jesse and Wally were off on their anniversary and were off the grid. The couple smirked remembering at the evolution of the two's relationship from the time they met to now.

They did get in contact with the other Barry and Kara and they said that they would be there. It was a bit since the last time the two had used the vacation house. Back then they were alone, which is how they wanted it. Barry and Caitlin didn't really mind it. That house was specifically for R&R. This time Caitlin wanted some sun and didn't really care if she was half a whale sized. Ever since she became pregnant and she knew that their child was going to be fine she didn't really care about how she looked, besides Barry would take every chance he had to make her feel special, loved and even sexy. She was in a lawn chair that was reclined enjoying the morning sun.

It was the last month of development for a normal child, Barry had benched her from using her powers at all, because at the previous test they found out that super speeding would increase the child's blood pressure. While that would be normal for them, they had no idea if it wouldn't hurt the fetus, so when Barry told her to take a rest and sit on the sidelines for now she had agreed. Besides, she had gotten used to him taking care of her, not that he didn't do that anyway. It was Saturday morning and the two were waiting for their guests. Caitlin was wearing a bikini and Barry had put her out on a lawn chair to bask in the sun.

 **"I see that you don't have any issues with how you look now"** the speedster grinned at his wife.

 **"What's that supposed to mean?"** she looked at him with a quizzical look.

 **"Remember the first time this happened? You were so worried about getting fat. Now all of a sudden you`re wearing a bikini and you`re larger than you have ever been. But you don't really care about it at all"** He smiled at her

 **"Not in the slightest. This is our child. I have told you before that there is only one kind of fat I want to be. Now shut up and get me some food"** Caitlin smirked. Her facial expressions made it clear that she was joking, however Barry got her some donuts anyway.

 **"There you go. I know you need to eat like a beached whale"** He smirked back making her laugh.

 **"Love you too, husband"** she quipped. On the other side of the pool a large blue swirling vortex appeared out of nowhere. Kara and older Barry decided to join the fun. They were both wearing bathing suits.

 **"Welcome you two"** Caitlin smiled trying to get up, but her stomach obviously getting in the way **"glad you could make it"**

 **"We wouldn't miss a day out with you guys. Although it did take me three hours to convince this one that she looks fine in a two piece bathing suit. You'd be surprised to hell at how shy she is"** Older Barry cracked a smile

 **"She looks fine compared to me"** Caitlin began to laugh.

 **"Oh come on, you don't look bad. This was to be expected"** Kara decided to pitch in.

 **"Take a break you two. You want anything to drink?"** Barry yelled from the other side of the pool while heading toward the house.

 **"We can't get drunk. You should know that by now, Barry"** Kara replied sitting on a pool chair to enjoy the beautiful weather.

 **"I already know that, I meant if you want something to drink anyway. Maybe you enjoy wine, like Caitlin, even though the alcohol doesn't even make it half a second in her system"** the speedster replied.

 **"Get me a beer then"** his older self replied.

 **"I'll just stick with orange juice if you have it"** Kara also voiced. In a few seconds they had what they requested in their hands. Courtesy of Barry's super speed.

The other people started to arrive. Oliver and Felicity made it first, followed by Cisco and Bette. Henry and Tina arrived just a bit later and Joe and Cecile were the last to arrive. Iris and Eddie excused themselves that they couldn't come. It seems that Eddie's dad has some health issues and they were out of town.

 **"This is one nice house"** Cecile commented while she and Joe came around to the back. **"I knew these two were rich, but seeing is believing"**

 **"You'll see that they don't act rich at all. Also you know these two are Flash and Frost, but there are some things you don't know yet so while you're here, I suggest you keep an open mind"** Joe told her smiling. She looked at him quite surprised by what he had told her.

 **"Hello, Oliver"** older Barry smiled

 **"Menace"** the response came. Older Barry didn't seem to care that the archer called him by that name **"What's new on earth 38?"**

 **"Nothing, just some idiots trying to kill Kara, as usual. I had to teach her hand to hand combat so that she could manage to not use much of her power against human opponents"** He replied.

 **"Oh? You taught her hand to hand combat? I had no clue that you knew something like that. Who taught you then?"** Ollie looked at him strangely

 **"Ra's al Ghul. Or better said, Oliver Queen after he beat the current one"** Older Barry grinned at his friend.

 **"Wait, I schooled you in the ways of the assassin? That combat style is for killing, I thought you didn't want to kill"** the archer replied.

 **"I have killed quite a lot, Oliver. I turned into a vigilante after Caitlin died. You agreed to teach me. From that I taught Kara"** older Barry replied quite nonchalantly.

 **"I would like to see how well I trained you. Maybe we can spar for a bit?"** Ollie answered.

 **"Sure, you can take me and Kara as well. Just wait until after lunch, we've had a … tiring night"** Older Barry said nonchalantly and the archer saw the girl of steel turning bright pink in the face.

 **"Fine by me. We can do that after we eat. Which reminds me, Barry, what's for lunch?"** the archer yelled at the younger one that was talking to his wife.

 **"I'll get out the grill in a bit and we can have some good old fashioned BBQ. How about that?"** the response came

 **"Sounds good"** the archer went and sat on a pool chair with his wife. The Allens got double as well as single pool chairs, they already knew that they were couples among the people that were there. Caitlin sneezed for some reason and from her hands a large icicle flew almost straight up. Kara didn't lose any time and flew after it, catching it and coming back down.

 **"Easy there, Frost. You all right?"** Kara smiled at her.

 **"Sorry, had something in my nose. Must be some pollen or something"** She replied with a grin

 **"What do I do with this?"** Supergirl asked holding the large icicle that she had caught.

 **"Just melt it in the pool with your heat vision. I suspect that's where the moisture was gathered in the first place"** Caitlin answered nonchalantly. Kara hit it with two beams from her eyes and the icicle turned back into water. The people there were already used to that, however there was one that was not. Cecile was looking at the blonde with wide eyes, prompting Joe to look at her

 **"You all right? You look like you've seen a ghost"** he smiled.

 **"She can fly? What about those beams that she can put out from her eyes and why are there two of Barry, you never said that you had twins for sons. Just him and Iris"** She looked strangely at Joe.

 **"Well, like I told you, keep an open mind. As you know, the Flash can travel pretty fast. So fast that he can actually travel through time"** Cecile's face became blank **"The one you think is a twin, is actually an older version of my son. He has travelled back in time to fix some things that went horribly wrong and he got stuck here. He's about 8 years older than Barry. In order to explain the flying girl… I will have to explain something about parallel dimensions"** Joe got cut off.

 **"Wait, those actually exist?"** she inquired.

 **"Yes, you see there is an earth out there on which aliens and humans coexist. They had their first contact, everyone knows about aliens and so on. That is the earth that the older Barry went to find the person he loved back in his timeline. That person is the blonde girl you saw fly. She is not from this earth and not even her earth"** Joe smiled at her

 **"Not from earth? Where is she from?"** Cecile's face looked like she was now discovering the mysteries of the universe.

 **"She is from a planet called Krypton. Somewhere far, far away. So yes, before you ask she is one of those aliens that live on that earth. That gives her the powers she has"** Joe ended his explanation.

 **"Wait, you're joking, right?"** Cecile looked at him with a serious face.

 **"Kara, mind coming here for a bit?"** Joe asked and the blonde girl just floated over the pool to where they were

 **"What's up?"** Supergirl asked the old detective.

 **"We have a non-believer here. She doesn't think you`re from another planet"** Joe grinned.

 **"Well how else would you explain the invulnerability, super strength, x ray vision and so on. I wasn't born here, the sun gives me these powers, my original planet, Krypton, had a red sun"** Kara smiled leaving Cecile with her mouth open. While Kara Joe and Cecile were discussing Barry was cooking, he got out the grill and started to make tons of food. Older Barry as well as Oliver came to help leaving Felicity to talk to Caitlin and Bette, while Cisco was meddling with the security system in the house.

 **"Never really thought I'd have friends to actually come and have a BBQ with after what happened"** Older Barry voiced.

 **"You know the punishments the Speed Force gives out are not all that precise. I think they do that specifically for the people that are punished to somehow receive a second chance"** his younger self quipped.

 **"This is definitely nice. Just out here, nothing to worry about, no Prometheus, no rain of blood, no magic. A day out with friends basking in the sun and grilling meat"** Oliver couldn't believe what he was saying, but it was true. He had friends that wanted him there.

 **"You can say that again, this might take a while anyway, since we have 4 speedsters and an alien, we will require a lot of food"** Barry smiled.

 **"Barry, it's just me, you and Caitlin. Do you even math, bro?"** older Barry grinned and started to laugh.

 **"I math quite good, Caitlin has been eating twice the food I do. The baby's rapid growth requires a lot of caloric intake. So you, me, Caitlin and the baby make 4"** The reply came with a grin.

 **"Ah, so now you`re 100% sure the kid will be a speedster?"** Oliver asked.

 **"Yes, I managed to get a tissue sample and he has the same cellular structure as Caitlin and I. What other power he will have, that is up to chance. I have no idea and I haven't detected any other sort of modification in his system"** Barry answered quite nonchalantly

 **"Oh boy. Running around after a baby speedster. You will have a lot of fun with that"** Older Barry grinned at his younger self.

 **"Actually no, we decided to dampen his speed until he's older and has at least some measure of control. You`re laughing at me? Imagine your kids with Kara. Mine would just speed around, yours would speed around and go through walls. You might need to learn masonry and brick laying because of that"** Young Barry cracked and started to laugh. His older self started to blush profusely. He looked at Kara who didn't say a word but her face was red as well.

 **"Super hearing, remember?"** Older Barry cracked a smile.

 **"Oh I know, why do you think I said what I did? You think I don't see on your faces that you want to have a family together? If you two don't, then god you`re blind as bats. That's saying something considering that at least one of you can see into space and at a microscopic level"** Young Barry smirked. Kara started to become even redder in the face.

 **"She can hear everything. Explains the color of her face right now"** the archer pointed at the blonde who was trying to not look their way so they wouldn't see the blush that she had on her cheeks. **"Hey, Kara, we can see you, stop hiding"** Oliver grinned.

 ** _"Stop making fun of Kara"_** Caitlin told him through their bond.

 ** _"Not making fun in the slightest. You know as well as I do that these two will have a family of their own, it's just a matter of time. Just making it clear for both of them because they seem to be blind"_** The reply came from her husband.

 ** _"That's true. These two will more than likely have their own family at one point. Somehow I think it will be quite soon"_** she replied to him. On the other side of the pool, Kara went to look for Cisco, she wanted something done that she could not do herself and it was related to her suit. She found the engineer tinkering with something in the basement and when she spoke she nearly scared him half to death

 **"Hey, Cisco. Mind if we have a word?"** the blonde spoke at the figure that could be seen

 **"Sheesh, Kara, don't sneak up on me like that, girl. Sure, speak away"** the engineer replied

 **"I know you made the shield from my other suit. I was wondering if you could make me a different one with a different design which would have all the tech the old one has"** She told him nonchalantly.

 **"Well I would need a specimen of how the shield needs to look. Do you have something like that? Or can you at least draw it?"** he asked her.

 **"Sure, give me a bit"** she went back to the house and found paper and a pencil and came back with the design she wanted. It was her own coat of arms a bit smaller than the usual one she had on her chest and in the background going through it was a yellow lightning bolt **"This should do"** she handed the paper to the engineer.

 **"Ah, I wouldn't have thought to blend the designs like that. Although that is something that I already did for the two speedsters here. So, you want to have Barry's symbol on your chest too huh?"** Cisco threw her a sheepish smile.

 **"Yes, I do"** She managed to speak and her face was redder than a tomato **"I like wearing his shield with mine. It reminds me of how close we have become in the almost year that has passed ever since you sent him to my earth"**

 **"Yes, I'm pretty sure that's all it reminds you of. I'll get that going when I get back to the lab. Do you need it like urgently? Or can it wait?"** Cisco inquired

 **"It can wait, but not too long. It's not urgent but I would like to surprise my Barry with it. You know"** she replied with a smile.

 **"All right, that's all I needed"** the engineer replied and Kara sped up back to the pool. Oliver decided to play master chef, they all knew how well he could cook so they left him to tend to the grill along with Felicity who decided to help. Henry and Tina joined them a bit later starting to talk about different things including about whatever interdimensional adventured they might have had. Barry and Caitlin were on a pool chair resting and older him and Kara came to chat.

 **"What's new with you two? Besides the obvious fact that you now are an item"** Caitlin grinned largely at the two people in front of her.

 **"Nothing new. I'm now a CSI and working with this dork at the NCPD. We've been dating for a bit, that's about it"** Kara told the two

 **"Dating, huh? Anything special in that category you might want to share?"** Barry gave her a grin.

 **"Actually, he took me to the Maldives. Two days just me and him on a sunny beach. Best date ever. I still don't know how he got the money for that, but he always skirts the question, so I decided to let it go. Those were the two best days of my life. Me and him on a private beach, alone"** Kara smiled and gave her Barry a long kiss. Caitlin already was looking weirdly at her Barry.

 ** _"I don't even have to ask where he got that money. You gave it to him, didn't you?"_** She asked mentally knowing that her Barry would help his double if he needed it. That was something that was not ever required to be said.

 ** _"Of course I did. I didn't mention anything because it was something he should have. I sent him 600k from the diamonds we hold in store at the labs and told him to make it a date that she would never forget. Apparently, he did. Look at her face, she's positively radiant when she talks about it"_** Young Barry replied with a large smirk.

 ** _"Pfft. You cheapskate. Why didn't you send him more? It's not like we don't have money or anything, we're filthy rich"_** Caitlin admonished her husband a bit.

 ** _"He didn't ask. He thought what I did send him was too much anyway. Don't blame me for it. Apparently it was enough"_** the reply came. Older Barry and Kara already knew what was going on, so they decided to break it up

 **"You know you two, it's not nice to talk between yourselves when other people are present"** Kara quipped.

 **"Oh, sorry, nothing important. Just talk about the baby and so on. We already managed to turn a room into a nursery and we were wondering if we might need another one"** Caitlin smiled. Barry however was stunned, you could see it on his face, the prospect of having yet another child was something that was new to him

 **"Yes, I'm sure that's what it was. Look at your husbands face, he doesn't know anything about a second child"** older Barry quipped.

 **"That's not what I was talking about. I meant a nursery for yours. In case you decide to take a vacation at our place"** Caitlin turned it against them, Older Barry and Kara started to blush profusely and dropped the subject immediately, although it was clear that they were both thinking about it pretty hard.

 ** _"That's some way of closing their mouths. By the way, I'm not against having more kids, if you want. I'm not the one carrying them. Just had that surprised face because you were so blunt about it"_** Barry explained his reaction to her.

 ** _"I never thought you were. But they didn't even think about it. Their reactions were priceless"_** Caitlin quipped and they both started to grin.

Food was ready so everyone sat down to eat, Cecile again being stunned at how much the speedsters could eat. Fortunately, Barry thought in advance and bought enough food to feed two African countries. Beside those he bought some donuts and two large cakes that were going to be used as desert for whoever would want them. After the copious meal Older Barry and Oliver decided it was time for some sparring.

The two took their places on the grass and started. Kara had seen this before but no one else did. They were amazed at the fluid style of the two that were now trading blows. They managed to block and dodge without much problems, Barry visibly having the upper hand over Oliver even without his speed. Kara already knew what her boyfriend was capable of. Barry however at the sight of the spectacle sat down and his head started to hurt. He knew this sensation very well. The flashes hit him like a truck.

First there was an unknown speedster, someone who looked a lot like a guy in armor running in what he could only categorize as a blue tunnel of light. After those everything became white and he saw all the training that Oliver had given him in the course of a few years all compressed in a few seconds. He saw the movement styles and how the Older Barry had turned his speed into cuts. The vibrations that if applied correctly could heal himself and everyone else around him, with the added toll it would take on his body. The way his older self managed to transform his energy into anything that he desired, from nuclear blasts to solar energy, the way Zoom used to make time remnants and how Older Barry made them so that they wouldn't take as much energy, even if they severely limited their time in the dimension that they were called. The absorption and redirection of kinetic energy and everything that came with it, slowing projectiles or even taking the energy in himself and giving it to someone else that didn't have it. Plus a slew of other memories flooded his head all at once.

His body started to fall, he couldn't control his limbs or move and his nose started bleeding. Kara managed to catch him and put him on the pool chair near his wife until he managed to calm down. Older Barry and Oliver came to see what was going on.

 **"More flashes?"** Kara asked remembering what had happened that time when they first met.

 **"Guys, I think I know Kung Fu"** He cracked while rubbing his temples, Caitlin visibly distraught about him being in pain.

 **"Really, Barry?"** his wife started to chuckle.

 **"I'm guessing more of my memories are starting to surface aren't they?"** older Barry said prompting a strange look from Kara and Oliver **"When I came back the lightning that hit these two backfired on me. The flashes that Barry kept having are more than likely my memories"**

 **"That explains why he knew so much about me the first day we met"** Kara realized what her boyfriend was saying.

 **"Yeah, he knew you because I knew you. Barry, what did you see and what do you mean by "I know kung Fu"**. **The reference isn't lost on me, but what happened?"** Older Barry asked himself.

 **"I saw all the stuff you can do. I think I can do the same things you can now. Cutting, time remnants, healing via vibration and strengthening my own body, changing the way my lightning behaves as energy and I think I assimilated your training with Oliver as well"** the reply came while Kara sped in the house to get him some painkillers.

 **"Well, there's only one way to find that out. You will have to spar with me and see if you can keep up"** older him chuckled.

 **"All right. If I can then, I'm going to have to teach you too, Cait. This style of combat is amazing, although it can kill in three hits what you can do with it while not killing is awesome. Besides I think you'd look bad ass if you use it"** Barry smiled at his wife who started to blush and nodded.

 **"Just wait until I have this baby, I wouldn't want to be hit now in some places, you know?"** she replied smiling and her husband nodded.

 **"Actually, I think you might want to spar with Kara. IF you manage to take her at full strength and not get seriously wounded then I know you can use what I can. IF you do get wounded, you can try vibrating to heal. I'll run to coast City and get pizzas, those techniques can be really tiring. I should know, I did them when I was training her"** Older Barry smiled and disappeared.

 **"All right. Kara?"** he asked looking at the blonde **"Full power then"**. The blonde nodded and the two walked over to the place where older Barry and Oliver were fighting a while back and started sparring. Supergirl threw from the get go an overpowered punch at him, only to be stopped in its tracks and make a sonic boom. Barry grinned at her and started attacking the alien. The punches and the blocks stirred a few sonic events that prompted the other people to put their hands on their ears. Kara didn't have any sort of bruises on her body, but Barry started to show a few. Even so, he managed to keep up with Kara prompting a whistle from his older self and from Oliver that had been observing.

Oliver took Kara on being pleasantly surprised that she would hit him so hard that he would be thrown into the water. Barry and Older him were sitting on the side of the pool chair that was near Caitlin.

 **"I see the training I had served you well. Try vibrating to heal from the bruises. If you keep them there they will fatigue you quite hard"** Older him prompted. Barry started to vibrate and for about a minute it was like he was phased. He stopped and there were no more purple spots on him anywhere.

 **"Me, I saw a speedster. Someone that was blue and was travelling through a tunnel, who is that guy?"** Barry asked

 **"That would be Savitar. Someone who came after me after I created Flashpoint. That night I went back and saved our mother. The fact that I kind of cracked the timeline drew his attention and he wanted to make sure that there is nobody stronger than him. But you have done nothing of the sort so it would be illogical for him to come here"** Older Barry told him

 **"I will still keep an eye out. Your memories have been proven true in some instances and I would be a fool not to heed them now"** the reply came.

 **"That was amazing. Now I really want you to teach me that fighting style and also that self-healing trick. That seemed pretty cool"** Caitlin grinned visibly impressed at what her Barry could do right now.

 **"I'll share what I know tonight in our dreams, darling. If that doesn't work, don't worry, I'll teach you all I know. I have to agree with you that fighting style is damn cool. Although it's more than likely made for killing, you managed to turn it into a non-lethal type of combat. That must have taken you a while huh?"** Young Barry asked himself.

 **"Quite a lot. Almost 5 years if not more including the time I was sparring with Kara"** The reply came. The blonde and Oliver came back with her not even sweating and him covered in small bruises and panting heavily.

 **"That was quite a show there, Kara. I had no clue you could control your strength that well"** The archer replied.

 **"You can thank my Barry for that. He managed to teach me this style so well that now my power control is seamless. I really love him for doing that. Now I don't have to worry about breaking someone's head off with a punch"** she smiled brightly at the people present.

 **"I'm surprised at you, Barry. This style of combat was meant for killing. You managed to turn it into something else"** He pointed at the bruises on his body **"The amount of impact control just to make bruises and not kill me is quite something. I can feel the hits draining me, but I'm not dead as I should be"**

 **"You helped me develop it, so be proud about yourself. Also close your eyes, I'm going to heal those bruises before you fall and can't get up"** Older Barry smiled. Oliver closed his eyes and he started to vibrate along with the archer. After about a minute the bruises were gone. **"There we go, you should feel better in a minute"**

 **"Those were some nice set of skills. As strange as me getting them from having your memories, now I have more to add to my arsenal. Including the absorption and redirection of kinetic energy that I saw. How can I test those?"** Barry asked his older self.

 **"That's simple. Kara will jump in the pool. When you see her take off, close your eyes and feel the energy. When you do that, try to draw it into you and see what happens"** Older him smiled. Kara went to the diving board and jumped the speedster closed his eyes and he started to feel the energy around him like never before, like strands that were tied to everything and everyone. He started to pull them into him and started to feel energized. When he opened his eyes his face fell. Kara was still jumping, her movement was severely slowed and it took her almost 30 seconds to hit the water. Caitlin was looking at him with wide eyes.

 **"That felt like such a rush. Does it give you energy when you do that?"** Young Barry asked

 **"Yes, it does. I suspect you felt like you were tapping into a battery. That's how that feels and in case you`re tired or down on energy you can do that as well. The problem here being that you can absorb Caitlin's energy as well, which is why I would advise you don't use that trick unless really necessary. Your biggest advantage is that there are two of you. If you reduce Caitlin to the movement of a tortoise then what's the point"** his older self-looked at the pregnant woman and chuckled

 **"You`re right, but it's good to know that I can do that nonetheless. Besides not like she can move that fast now with the fact that she has now added air resistance"** He replied looking at his wife's belly and caressing it gently. Caitlin scoffed.

 **"That was the weirdest feeling"** Kara spoke while coming out of the water. Oliver was still a bit shocked **"It was like I was moving, but I wasn't. Everything was so slow that I thought someone was rolling a bad movie on slow motion"** She quipped. Suddenly Barry that was sitting on the pool chair with his wife felt something wet

 **"Kara, you should dry up, you're dripping all over the chair"** he smiled and looked at the blond. Surprisingly she was already dry and gave him an inquisitive look. He turned toward Caitlin who looked at him with a surprised face.

 **"Barry, I think my water just broke"** she told him. At the sound of those words the speedster got up instantly looking around

 **"Here or at the penthouse?"** he asked

 **"Does it matter? Both are ok and we have what's needed. We just need some stuff from the penthouse because I didn't expect this to happen here and I don't think it's a good idea that we speed over there either"** She replied. Older Barry started to run and split in three. All of them coming back in front of the chair. The others were wide eyes at seeing that, but when Oliver said that her water broke they all became agitated all of a sudden.

 **"Tell us what you need"** Older Barry and his remnants were all to order. Kara was surprised as well as Caitlin that he was so eager to help. But then they remembered who they were talking to. Barry gave them a list of things that they should get from the penthouse and the speedsters were gone.

 **"Be right back"** Barry started to run and before his wife could say anything there were two of them in front of her **"This seems to work just fine, quite handy as well as far as I can see"**

 **"Why would you need two of you? Also you really need to teach me that trick as well"** she looked at them while one took her in his arms and was carrying her in the house.

 **"One to deliver the baby and one to hold your hand. Duh. Come on, I thought that was obvious. Cait, it comes without saying that I will teach you all I know. That's not even a discussion point"** The one that was carrying her replied. She smiled brightly at him. She always thought that while she loved the fact he studied OBGYN to make sure that she didn't have to be in the room with anyone but him, he would probably help her deliver so there would be no one to hold her hand through the ordeal. Not that she needed it, but she wanted to feel him with her. Now there suddenly was. She knew that the one holding her hand would be her husband.

Older Barry and his time remnants came back in less than 30 seconds with everything that was on the list and Barry with his wife went into a bedroom and closed the door. The others remained outside and were frantically pacing around

 **"Barry, I need you to go get something from the lab. It's a small necklace that I have in the lab downstairs. Next to it there's an injector with a white fluid. Get those for me will you?"** He asked him. The speedster was gone and came back with the requested items. His time remnants were gone already, having served their purpose.

 **"What is this for?"** Henry asked

 **"Speed dampener. The child will more than likely be a speedster. The injector contains nanites that I designed specifically for him so that they don't hurt him or stunt his growth. The necklace is the activation switch. It will keep the bots active in his system"** The engineer explained.

 **"You two might need something like that"** Bette told the two. Which again, as always when someone mentioned them having children turned red to the face.

 **"I don't think that would be something. Remember her skin? She's impenetrable, I'm pretty sure this injector won't work with one of their kids"** the engineer laughed.

The people outside had to fill their time with something as Barry was helping Caitlin deliver their first child. They played volleyball, cooked another set of ribs, swam, but you could see it on their faces, they were all worried about what was going to happen. The relief came way earlier than expected. After about 4 hours, Barry's time remnant sped down

 **"You can all go see them"** He sped away back to the speed force. Older Barry was surprised that the remnant was active for this long but didn't care. The ones that had powers sped up the stairs in a matter of seconds. The rest following them as soon as they could. The door to the bedroom was open and Caitlin had a small child in her arms. Barry was at her bedside.

 **"Everyone, come and meet Alexander Henry Allen"** the speedster smiled as everyone came into the room to see the newborn. He was beautiful, you could see on Caitlin's face the happiness that she now was experiencing

 **"Everything all right with baby and mother?"** Henry asked

 **"Yes. Although, Kara if you can give him a once over and see if everything is all right"** Barry asked his alien friend **"Pertaining everything else, I knew for a fact that labor could last up to 18 hours, but I didn't discount that everything might be accelerated because our speedster physiology"**

 **"I'm actually happy it ended sooner, I couldn't wait to meet this little guy. Of course, the pains were annoying as well, but since I ate two of Cisco's bars before all of this even started, I didn't lose any sort of energy. I feel like I could run to Coast City and back"** Caitlin said with a large smile on her face. Her eyes were watering as she looked at the newborn she was holding. Everyone else was happy for them and looked at the baby like it was their own. Something that came almost naturally seeing that they were all an extended family.

 **"Everything seems to be in order. Nothing broken, nothing misaligned. Little Alexander is as healthy as I can make him out to be. What's your take on it, Doctor?"** she asked Barry with a smirk

 **"Nothing seems to be wrong in any area that I can think of. Cisco, did you have what I asked you to make earlier?"** Barry looked at the engineer who gave him an injector and a necklace. He gave the small child a shot and the put the small chain around his neck with the necklace glowing green.

 **"Don't worry, Cait. I'll monitor him closely for the next few days to make sure the nanites don't have an adverse effect on him"**

 **"I know. I'll do the same, but for now I think that's for the better"** She replied looking at her husband.

 **"Congratulations are in order. I'm going to go down and get some alcohol going. Sorry but this deserves at least a round of drinks. Or us getting wasted for the dad that can't"** Joe gave them a large smile and went down to prepare drinks for everyone. Everyone agreed, the people that could get wasted and were immediate family should. Joe, Henry, Oliver and even Felicity who wasn't an avid drinker.

Cisco started to take pictures with the two that had that look on their faces like everything was all right with the world. The child woke up and smiled. Older Barry and Kara noticed in their minds that it seemed that the two new parents were melting at the sight of the beautiful bundle of joy that Caitlin was now holding in her arms. Then after a bit, came back with both their phones.

 **"These will help you keep an eye on him. I tied them into the cameras in the baby room at home and most of the cameras here. All you need to do is hook up to the STAR Labs satellite and you can watch your child from anywhere to make sure that he's ok. Thought you might need these as … new parents"** the engineer smiled

 **"That is a good idea, Cisco. Thank you"** both speedsters said in almost a voice.

 **"Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get wasted celebrating little Alex with the rest of them"** Cisco gave them a large grin **"Congratulations you two"** and he was out the door going into the courtyard where everyone else was celebrating.

 **"I'm going to need to learn OBGYN aren't I?"** Older Barry suddenly blurted out not even thinking of the ramifications of what he said.

 **"Yes and no. If you have no problem with me delivering your children then I don't see why you should. I learned more than enough for this and since the physiology of the mother and child was quite different from that of a normal human, I think I have a pretty good idea of what can happen even if the mother is actually an alien"** Barry replied with a serious face. **"Unless you have something to object, Kara?"**

The blonde was speechless. She needed to process what was said. It wasn't like she didn't think of children of her own, but seeing the two holding their little bundle of joy kind of stuck her in a state of perpetual thinking. After a bit managing to put everything in her head together she just answered.

 **"No, I don't have anything to object about that. If you need anything from me like cells to study or stuff like that. Tell me. I'd rather they not be anywhere on my earth. Besides you two are the only people I trust beside this lug here with the information that you can get out of them"** Her voice was cracking, she went to see the baby and Caitlin, which you might think that she would not let her child out of her sights for the next 10 years, gave Alex to her to hold.

 **"Feels different, doesn't it?"** she smiled at Kara who's eyes were watering seeing the small child play with her finger **"Aunt Kara"**

 **"It does. Thank you for letting me hold him, but he's yours. There will come a time when I will have someone to hold as well"** she said quite nonchalantly while handing the child back to Caitlin, making Older Barry's face fall almost entirely. Younger him saw that reaction and chuckled

 ** _"Did you see how his face fell? Now that is a priceless reaction"_** Barry told his wife who was still looking at the baby lovingly. He could feel how happy she was, it was not something that he could describe to anyone. He knew that because it was something he felt himself.

 ** _"I know he thought about children himself. It would be surprising if he didn't, but the fact that Kara just confirmed it and with a pretty stern statement, I think it just took him by surprise. Remember, he didn't think that he would ever have a family again and almost after a year with Kara, that possibility is slowly, but surely, turning into reality"_** Caitlin smiled back at her husband.

They partied the rest of the day and well into the night. Joe and Henry were wasted by the end of it all being immensely happy that they had a grandson. Oliver and Felicity were drunk and reacted quite funny at the request of being the little child's godfather and godmother. Older Barry and Kara managed to get drunk as well after Cisco told them where was a stash of Killer Flash somewhere in the lab which the speedster found almost immediately. Cecile had left, she had depositions to finish till the next day. Cisco and Bette were half drunk as well dancing around the pool. Barry and Caitlin came down themselves, but keeping an eye on their child like hawks and either of them flashing to his bedside if he made even one sound. The little one was tired and fell asleep immediately after Caitlin fed him, so there was nothing more to do. They were watching the people that were sharing their joy and smiling. They knew this day was coming for a while, they had a child, their little family had started to grow and they couldn't be happier. In the light of the moon that had come up from the sky the two kissed as the people that saw them started to whistle and cheer. Cisco even told them to _"take a breather, don't make another one just yet"_ prompting the others to laugh hard.

 ** _"This is how it begins, huh? The Allen family has welcomed another member"_** Barry voice in his mind while they kissed.

 ** _"You could say that, or you could say that it all began back when we were both struck by lightning. I don't know which one would be the correct thinking. I'm glad that happened. This little guy has made me so happy, I know you can feel it too so I'm glad I don't have to describe it because I don't think I could"_** Caitlin replied as the two were still kissing.

 ** _"I don't really care to be honest. I'm glad it happened and I'm glad that I have you to be here by my side for as long as I live. I love you, Cait"_** He voiced while she felt the immense amount of love and happiness that were coming off him.

 ** _"Me neither. I'm just glad you`re mine, that I found someone that loves me as much as I love him and the one that I'm going to spend the rest of my life with. I love you, Barry"_** she voices while the kiss lingered on. The people around them starting to cheer and call them nicknames. They all did it in good fun, even making them break the kiss and start to laugh. They were home, they had each other and their strange over the top family was celebrating with them. That's what they could only consider as perfect.

* * *

AN: Hello everyone, in starting to write the other story for Future Barry and Kara i realized off the bat that if i continue writing this, then there will be major spoilers of what is supposed to happen in that story. In light of this, i have somewhat decided to put this story on hold until i can bring both of them into the same timeframe. That way there will be no spoilers for any of the stories as they develop.

If you have something to add, or maybe some other solution that i didn't think of, feel free to write it in the reviews below or send me a private message. I will leave this story open and probably keep updating it with stand alone chapters which do not bring any spoilers, but it will be seldom as my focus will be on the other one. Feel free to shoot me a whisper or leave your opinions in the comments.

Unless something major changes, next week i will start posting the starter chapters for the other story.

To Wall : Thanks for the review it is appreciated. As for what you said, hell no. I don't intend by a long shot to make The older version become Savitar. I have to agree with you, that arc was ... well , kind of shit to be honest. He is his own character now and he will have his own stories. It's not like i'm running out of villains to write for, lol .


	61. Assistance

Over the next few weeks Barry and Caitlin started to take the brunt of what it meant to have a newborn child. They slept seldom and the times that they were actually getting more than 4 hours sleep were few and far between. They both kept an eye on little Alex to make sure that the nanites weren't hurting him and by doing that they discovered something else. One day they had found him sleeping, which was a bit abnormal considering the little tyke had enough energy to cry every 6 hours, but when they measured his glucose level they realized that it was extremely low. He was not old enough to eat something that was as consistent as a power bar yet so they had to go to Cisco to see if he could whip up something that would be similar to formula. Caitlin could still feed him, but after that it was obvious that he needed more calories than he would be getting from breast milk. Barry sped to STAR while she remained behind to take care of the child. Cisco was in the Cortex with Bette monitoring the events that were happening around the city.

 **"Morning. Cisco I'm going to need some help with something"** Barry told him with a little worry in his voice.

 **"Sure. What can I do?"** the engineer asked quite cheerily

 **"As you might know, we need a lot of calories to keep our physiology at bay when it comes to energy. After our child blacked out a while ago I decided to get some blood and what I found was a bit disconcerting. It seems that he needs to be fed once every 6 hours, if not his growing body tanks the amount of sugar in his system and he becomes lethargic"** The speedster explained the issue quite openly.

 **"I don't see the problem, just give him a power bar. There's a stash of them in my lab"** Cisco replied.

 **"I would if he was at least one year old, but he isn't. Is there any way we can dissolve those bars in some kind of formula, also I need to find out if the substances we used aren't going to harm him"** Barry replied.

 **"Ah I see. He can't eat solid food. Caitlin is breast feeding him so if she eats more wouldn't the milk contain more sugars?"** Bette asked

 **"She has continued to eat at least one bar a day after she has given birth and it seems that it's not enough, or else the little tyke wouldn't have hypoglycemia the way he does"** the speedster stated

 **"All right then. Let's go to my lab and see if we can figure out a way to make speedster baby formula then"** Cisco grinned and his smile said everything. He loved their kid.

It took them longer than expected to come up with something that would work. The fact that it had so be soluble in water and not be molasses proved to be quite a challenge for the two that were working. Since the bars consisted of sugar and fat substances, turning it into something soluble was a pain.

 ** _"Is everything going ok?"_** he heard Caitlin ask him

 ** _"Yea, the problem is that we need to make something soluble. The bars we eat are basically sugar and fat with a little flavor added and some substances that we already know are processed by our bodies and turned into energy"_** He replied while working

 ** _"Mind if I take a look?"_** she asked like she actually needed to

 ** _"Not at all. I'll go take care of Alex, you come here and see if there is anything I missed. I'm in Cisco's lab"_** Barry flashed out much to the surprise of the engineer and a few seconds later Caitlin was next to him.

 **"What just happened?"** he asked.

 **"Barry thought I might have more luck with helping you, he's back watching the baby so I can be here"** Caitlin smiled at him.

 **"Oh, you two talked it out. You know, that link thing you have seems to be pretty useful. Too bad you have to get struck by lightning to get it"** He pouted looking at the scientist that was now reading the work her husband had completed prior.

 **"Yeah. This is something that I find interesting. Do we really need to dissolve everything in water?"** she asked

 **"It's supposed to be formula, which means liquid and not something that takes 30 minutes to fill a tea spoon. I suppose it doesn't have to be water, but what else can it be?"** Cisco inquired

 **"Well since he is eating milk already, can we put everything in milk? I know it's not soluble when the liquid is cold, but maybe we can heat it up and see if it works that way"** Caitlin voiced her thoughts.

 **"Sure but where are we going to get …"** he didn't finish his sentence and Caitlin was back with a jug of fresh milk **"never mind. Forget I asked"**

Back at the penthouse, Barry took care of everything that could be taken care of, only to receive a call from Joe, at the precinct.

 **"Hey, Barry. I'm going to need your CSI expertise, do you have some time?"** He inquired

 **"Joe, I'm alone at home with the baby. Caitlin is trying to make some formula with Cisco at the labs that will give him enough energy. Kind of the bars we eat, so at the moment I'm kind of stuck here. Give me a moment"** He replied.

 ** _"Cait, Joe needs me down at the precinct, is there anyone who can babysit for maybe an hour? Alex is asleep and I don't want to wake him, by taking him to STAR Labs"_** he voiced to his wife.

 ** _"It's fine, bring him here. We'll get him back to sleep if he wakes up. I'm so glad we built that crib in the Cortex so we can take him with us when we can't be at home"_** the reply came.

 **"Bar?"** he heard the voice from the other side of the line

"Sorry, was talking to Caitlin. I'll take him to STAR and then join you. What's the location?" he asked his adoptive father.

"37 piedmont. There's an alley north of where I am. I don't know how many people know who you are so it would be beneficial that you don't run in as usual" the detective told him.

 **"Be there in 2 minutes"** Barry closed the line and Sped over to STAR Labs with Alex which thankfully didn't wake up at all, being at the location he got from Joe about a minute and a half later.

 **"How's the little guy?"** Joe asked as soon as Barry was in view

 **"He's hungry and he needs a lot of energy. Besides that, I wish he'd sleep an entire night so we could actually get some rest ourselves. Thankfully, the fact that we do get about 10 hours of sleep even if it's fragmented hasn't affected us too much"** The speedster replied.

 **"So this is what we have. Unknown assailant killed 3 people in an attempt to rob this pawn store. How or why we have no clue. We thought you could give us a heads up"** the detective showed the speedster the crime scene.

 **"Mind getting the people out of here? I can be done in less than 3 minutes, but without spectators"** Barry smiled.

 **"No problem"** the detective got all the cops out and closed the door. Barry started speeding around and collecting evidence from the place finishing in the time it took the others to smoke a cigarette.

 **"It seems like a garden variety theft and murder to me, although, see here?"** he pointed at the neck of one of the victims **"It looks like he hit something at high speed. There is no way anyone, not even at Kara's level of strength could produce this type of scalable bruising. I'm not sure, but these murders might have been done by another speedster. Or at least someone who can move really fast or slow the persons around him"**

 **"The turtle is still in the pipeline, isn't he?"** Joe inquired with a worried look

 **"Yes, he's still there, but there's no reason someone else wouldn't have his powers. I'll go to the labs and process this and call you with what I have. Have the ME do his report as fast as he can and send over the results"** The speedster replied and flashed out running toward the labs. Joe called the ME saying that the area has been cleared and forwarded Barry's message to him.

When he returned Bette was walking around the labs with Alex in her arms that was still asleep. Barry noted that she looked really nice doing that and the promise they made to her and Cisco was still there, none of them even remotely mentioned the fact that they wanted to have a child, which meant that the promise was on hold.

He started to analyze the evidence that he got. The blood that he had found on the bodies was their blood, none of it was someone else's, the rest of the evidence suggested that from the three persons that were killed, only two were actually there, on the third he found dirt and mud that had nothing to do with anywhere that was in the city.

He flashed to the Morgue and the ME was just finishing his analysis. He looked over the report and what saw kind of shocked him. The three person's necks were all wrong, you couldn't see form their positions on the floor, but it looked like someone had played with the cells, their spine was badly placed, the trachea was skewed and the vocal cords were almost vertical. The damage was identical in all of the victims. The ME concluded that they died of asphyxiation and from the fact that they could not move, since their spinal cord was severed. This was akin to torture rather than murder.

He left back to the labs with the reports thinking what might have caused that. His thoughts however went to Caitlin as well

 ** _"Their spine severed and their internal breathing apparatus damaged. Sounds like someone really wanted those men to suffer, doesn't it ?"_** she replied after getting what he was thinking

 ** _"That might be it. Or it might be something else. Remember what I learned from Menace? The whole healing thing with the vibrations?"_** He responded

 ** _"Yea. What does that have to do with this?"_** his wife asked.

 ** _"This sincerely looks like someone phased through their necks, but couldn't control his power and instead of just killing them, like severing their spine, akin to breaking their necks, he actually failed and this was the result"_** Barry spoke

 ** _"So you think there might be a metahuman that can phase loose in the city? That would be bad, especially for someone who can't control what they are doing"_** the answer came quite quickly.

 ** _"I don't know yet, Cait. That's what I saw. I can bring you the files so you can take a look and tell me what you think. If you aren't busy"_** Barry transmitted

 ** _"Bring them, me and Cisco are almost finished with the speedster baby formula. The fabrication process is a bit annoying, but it can be done. Leave it to Cisco to amaze me even more each time I want something new from him"_** Caitlin replied visibly proud of the genius engineer who had in a lot of cases made something awesome from nothing at all.

 ** _"That's our Cisco. Give him something to do and he will do it. That man is a genius. I'll be there in a bit"_** Barry replied and sped over to Cisco's lab who was not at all surprised when one of them or both would pop in especially since they could talk in their heads. Caitlin took a little break and looked over the files, Barry taking Alex from Bette and playing around with him for a bit until his wife managed to finish looking over the data he had got from the ME and the evidence he had collected himself.

 **"It looks like you might be right, but think of it like this. If the person cannot control their phasing, wouldn't they … fall through the earth? We always knew that was a danger when we phased"** She voiced handing him the files and taking the baby

 **"I really don't know. That might be the case, but this murder still happened. I would rather have a solid lead, something more than, well there's someone who can phase and he kills people because he can't control his power"** Barry said with a bit of disdain.

 **"I know how you feel, Barry, but this is all we can get out of the evidence that has been presented to us. Nothing more. You know how being a CSI works, it's not like I have to remind you"** Caitlin spoke calmly

 **"Yea, I know you`re right, Cait. This still annoys me though"** Barry replied but seeing his child laugh at him his face instantly lit up and smiled. Caitlin picked up on that right away, chuckling.

 **"Seems that not even a murder can keep you from being happy because of this little guy"** She smiled brightly at him

 **"No, nothing can keep me from smiling when I see him. You are correct, my darling wife"** the speedster cracked a grin. Barry returned to the CCPD and gave Joe the evidence he had gathered as well as told him the conclusions he and his wife came to. Considering they didn't find any sort of evidence as who the man was, Joe was a bit bummed out, but appreciated the work put into helping them knowing that now the couple had a baby on their hands.

Cisco and Caitlin managed to get something working so they could feed the little guy. Barry was keeping an eye on his cells and how the nanites were affecting him, but he discovered, much to his surprise that they had no effect. Cisco had done a wonderful job in making them as seamless for his little body as they could be. The two were fine for now regarding sleep, but Caitlin discovered that their intake of power bars had double since the baby had arrived. More than likely to keep the energy up and stave off exhaustion. That was something that was not recommended, they already had high metabolisms, they didn't need to add more to what they were already eating. She caught Barry taking one of the bars and stopped him.

 **"I think we need to stay off the bars, Barry. Only eat them when we really need them"** she told him

 **"What do you mean, I'm eating them because I need my energy, that's what they were made for weren't they?"** the speedster asked with a confused face.

 **"I mean we should try to get some rest. Sure, putting energy into our bodies might stave off the exhaustion that we get from not sleeping like we should, but our brains don't get the rest they need. I found it hard to concentrate today even if I have enough energy to take a hike to Star City and back"** She told him with a rather worried face.

 **"Ah, I see where you're going. The fact that we put energy into our bodies means we can stay functional, but our focus is suffering. Well let's try to lay off the bars and see what happens then. But somehow I think we will be stupidly tired"** he acknowledged her worry

 **"I prefer that then getting addicted to an extra rush of energy. IN the end we can always take shifts. You sleep one night I'll sleep on another. It's still better than none of us sleeping at all. If something happens to the city and we can't focus then we might end up dead along a whole lot of people"** Caitlin spoke her mind and Barry realized she was right.

 **"Ok. We'll leave off the power bars deal with whatever comes our way when it does"** the speedster smiled and the two went on with their day. As the night approached however and Cisco was almost done in making the new baby formula they started to doze off. Caitlin looked at her husband who was snoring his head off in a chair in the cortex. Her yawning alerted her that she was tired as well, but decided to let him sleep at least a bit. Of course that didn't happen, the alarm started blaring that Barry woke up scared and fell off the chair on the floor.

 **"Ouch. That's definitely not pleasant"** He looked up at Caitlin who was chuckling **"I fell asleep didn't I?"**

 **"Yeah. I thought to let you sleep since you looked tired. I'm here anyway and he is fine"** she pointed at the giggling baby in her arms.

 **"What was that?"** Barry went over to the consoles and Cisco came into the cortex

 **"It seems that we have a breach incoming, except there is none that has opened anywhere"** the engineer looked at the readings. The alarm however blared again,

 **"Cisco, cut that damn thing off, it's scaring the baby, for crying out loud"** Barry voiced quite loudly. With a flick of a button the sounds stopped, but the alerts were still on. Somehow their system started to detect breaches where there weren't any.

 **"Guys, we have a problem. The system is now detecting electrical storms and phenomena around the country. It's acting like a warning system, but not for breaches, but for atmospherical electrical events. This is really strange, we calibrated this system to detect exotic particles, why would we have exotic particles in out atmosphere?"** the engineer voiced quite worried

 **"I don't know, but maybe we can find out in the morning. Caitlin and I are stupidly tired and we might need a good night's sleep to help you find out why that is happening"** Barry replied.

 **"Maybe we can help with that, if you want to let us do it"** Henry and Tina walked into the lab, hand in hand like they usually were until then.

 **"You want to ruin a night for yourselves and make sure Alex is fed and changed?"** Caitlin was surprised but not so much.

 **"Well, you do have to save the city, you sleeping while standing isn't going to do anyone any favors, besides, I don't really work and Tina can manage the lab from wherever she wants. Would make sense for us to help you with Alex"** Henry voices looking quite proudly at his grandson.

 **"All right. Go to the penthouse and tell us when you arrive. I'll flash Alex to you when you get there and the new formula that Cisco is making. It should help him get the caloric requirement that he needs. We need to see what's happening here with all these alerts then we'll get our asses home and sleep it off"** Barry smiled at his father.

 **"All right, I'll give you a call when we get home"** the man answered and he and Tina were out.

 **"You know you can call me and Cisco to take care of him if you`re tired and need some rest too"** Bette came into the cortex and smiled. Cisco nodded furiously letting the speedster couple know he would be delighted to take care of the little tyke

 **"Thanks, you two. Much appreciated"** Caitlin chuckled.

 **"Aunt Bette and Uncle Cisco. That's something I never thought I'd hear myself say"** Barry looked at the two and grinned

 **"You two go home, I'm going to stick around and see what the hell is happening with the breach detector. Something isn't right if the electrical storms are detected as exotic matter. I'll let you know what I found. In the meanwhile, you go sleep. You need it by both your faces"** Cisco smirked at the two speedsters while Bette was chuckling.

 **"Good night then, well see you tomorrow"** Caitlin told them and both speedsters flashed out with their child. When they got to the penthouse Barry and Caitlin left Alex with his father and Tina and went straight to sleep. They were happy that they managed to get at least a few hours of uninterrupted shuteye, which was a first in the last few weeks since he was born.

The next morning Caitlin was awake, something stirring inside her and worry about her child. Speeding toward the other side of the penthouse however she saw him sleeping with a smile on his face and Henry and Tina sleeping as well in the large bed of the room they picked for the night. She walked back down quietly as not to wake them, however when she got into the main area, her phone was ringing and she could see Barry coming down from the other staircase to answer. She got there first.

 **"Hey, Barry"** she answered the phone seeing the caller ID from the other universe.

 **"Morning Caitlin. Sorry to call so early, but we might need your help with something"** older Barry greeted as her own speedster was approaching. She put the phone on speaker so that they both could hear what was going on

 **"I'm guessing it's something pretty big. You do know two of the strongest people in that universe, so that's saying something"** her husband spoke into the device

 **"Yeah. Something we haven't told you, Clark has a girlfriend"** Kara started

 **"By the tone in your voice, Kara, I don't think you called us to come to a wedding"** Caitlin replied.

 **"No. She has been taken and the kidnappers sent a note to Clark, Superman has to be somewhere at midnight tonight or she dies. Yesterday we found some evidence that lead us to a meeting place outside town and we stalked it out for a bit. It appears that quite a variety of criminals are preparing to be part of this attack, they really want to kill him"** the alien explained with her voice visibly worried about what could happen.

 **"The problem with that is, that some of them are powered by Kryptonite. Which means serious trouble for Kara and Clark. While I might be way faster than anything on this planet at this time, I don't think I can take them myself. I would rather, my girlfriend and her cousin don't get killed"** Older Barry continued his girlfriend's sentiment.

 **"That shouldn't be a problem. Are you still in National City?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"No. We're in Metropolis. I would suggest to see if Cisco can open a breach straight here. It would take you a while to get here"** Barry's double replied.

 **"Mind if I take your Menace costume out for a spin? That world already has a Flash. It would be a bit strange if all of a sudden two appears"** her husband inquired though the line.

 **"Sure, if you want to. However, I do not really see the point. It's more than likely that only those people will be there"** his older self came with the answer to his question

 **"Sweetie, it's possible that there will be people watching from afar. Even snipers like the last time with Kryptonite bullets. Let him come as Menace, that way we confuse the others about where all these superheroes suddenly popped up"** Kara voiced her thoughts. The speedster couple chuckling at her calling the older Barry sweetie.

 **"Ok. Then that's settled. We'll talk to Oliver, see if he can make it and then jump over. We'll also see if Henry or Joe wants to spend a little time with their grandson. Cisco will open a portal at your location so don't stand near a wall"** young Barry replied and closed the line **. "We're going to need a babysitter. I don't think Henry and Tina are up for another round. I didn't see how they fared last night. I think I was out like a light the moment we got into bed"**

 **"Me neither"** his wife retorted **"but I went in their room now, Alex was happily sleeping and those two were as well. So I guess their night wasn't as bad as we thought"**

 **"Let's get something to eat and wait for them to wake up. I'll call Oliver and see if he wants to join the interdimensional jumpers club again"** Barry cracked and Caitlin went to make some food. After about 30 minutes Tina and Henry woke up, Alex was still asleep so they decided to come down after they smelled fresh coffee.

 **"Morning you two. How did you rest?"** Henry smiled at his kids.

 **"We should be asking you that question, we were out like lights. Slept through the night and I think we even drooled a bit"** Caitlin started to laugh.

 **"He was surprisingly quiet, he did wake up and needed his bottle, but that happened only twice. Which was nothing that we couldn't take care of. Henry seems to be proficient at quieting down babies"** Tina gave Caitlin a smirk.

 **"Well, he did have Iris to take care of when he was a young which of course it means he would have that experience"** Barry grinned at his dad **"Dad, Tina do you have the energy to take care of him for another day or so? Barry called from the other universe and he needs our help. It seems someone is after Clark and Kara. They want to kill them"**

 **"Yes, we're fine. We can take care of him until you come back. I can take a day off from Mercury as well, seeing that now most people know I'm with Henry and the rest know you just have had a child. Which can lead to the rest"** Tina smiled. It was strange to the two speedsters how fast she had taken to their son and was acting like she was a grandma already even though she had never had children of her own. That in itself made them happy. Tina was indeed becoming part of the family, if she wanted it or not.

 **"All right. We'll leave Alex to you. We need to go to STAR and get ready for the trip"** Barry smiled and the two speedster were off after waving goodbye. When the two got in the Cortex, Cisco was there, it seemed like he was tired as all hell.

 **"Didn't you get any sleep man?"** Barry asked his friend

 **"No, sorry, I was working on something. A surprise for a friend"** he replied.

 **"You mean the Kryptonite resistant suit for Kara?"** Caitlin chuckled leaving the engineer completely baffled. **"What? You think we didn't hear you talking to Menace and didn't see the small sliver of green rock you have in your lab under a lead casing? Come on Cisco, it's us you`re talking to"**

 **"Yes, that's what I was working on, you caught me"** he raised his hands up in surrender but chuckling wildly

 **"Then get back to it. Menace and Kara just called. Someone wants to kill Clark. To that effect, they kidnapped his girlfriend and are demanding that Superman meet them at a location outside of town, alone, at midnight. Kara might need that Kryptonite resistant suit as fast as you can finish it"** Barry told the engineer.

 **"Get me some coffee. Make is as strong as you can, I'm going back to the lab. I'll have it finished in a few hours"** The engineer told them quite determined. Barry flashed out to get him coffee and Caitlin called Oliver.

 **"Hey, Ollie, you busy?"** she asked.

 **"You know me, Caitlin, I'm always busy for others and rarely busy for my friends, is there something the matter?"** he asked quite bluntly

 **"Menace called from the other dimension. Someone is trying to kill Clark, by extension if Kara goes to help him, she might get killed too. He asked for our help and we thought you might want to join in"** she explained why the sudden call.

 **"Tell Barry to come get me, or you come get me yourself. I'll be in the cave in 10 minutes"** the voice told her sternly "You need tech support? Or …"

 **"I am going to assume that this is just going to be one big fight. You can leave Felicity at home if she doesn't want to come. Or she is busy"** The reply came

 **"All right. See you in a little while"** He closed the line. Caitlin was really surprised that Oliver would jump so fast to help someone from another universe. However, remembered the fact that Menace was always there when they needed him and Kara was family, so much so that Oliver considered her as a godmother for whenever he would have a child.

 **"Barry, can you go by the penthouse and check on Alex, then run to Star City to get Oliver? He's coming with us to help Menace and Kara"** She told her husband.

 **"I'm already in the penthouse, watching Tina feed our boy. I came back to see how he was doing after I got Cisco food and coffee"** Caitlin smiled at the fact that he thought to check in on their child as much as she did **"When do I have to be in Star City?"** he asked

 **"Ollie said 10 minutes, which means you can go now if you want and just take it a bit slower so you don't burn so much energy"** She smiled and then continued **"On second thought, I'm coming with you. It's been a while since we've had a nice run together"**

 **"That is what I was going to suggest. Come home and we'll go from there"** Barry replied and she flashed out of STAR. The two speedsters met in the balcony and left toward Star City as fast as they could. They had been running to train their speed but mostly in the speed lab that was underneath the complex, they haven't had a nice long run for themselves ever since Caitlin got benched almost two months ago. They had never got tired of running together, sometimes just going to Coast City to get pizza and look at the ocean while the sun was going down. They had the speed, it just took them 2 minutes now to get to Star City. They had been getting faster and faster and the difference was noticeable. The couple had gotten a long way since they first started and they loved it.

They came back with Oliver about 10 minutes later and went straight to the pedestal room where Cisco already programed the breach generator to Kara's off world signal. He would do that sometimes so they wouldn't need him and usually when he was very busy. The three pressed a button, a blue vortex opened and they stepped through it and were gone. The moment that happened Cisco's workstation started flashing red. He had closed down the breach alerts because of the baby but they would still get them. He rerouted the data from the cortex so he could look over them while he was putting the finishing touches on Kara's suit. The information that was displayed was worrying him. He put in a call back to the penthouse

 **"Hey, Henry, it's Cisco. Is Tina with you?"** He asked

 **"I'm here, Cisco"** her voice came through.

 **"Can you go to the terminals in the office, I'm sending over some data that seems a bit weird for me. I'm not a physicist per say so you might have a better idea of what the hell is going on"** Cisco said and he heard the other line connect. He sent the data and it popped up on the consoles in the penthouse.

 **"The breach system you constructed with Professor Stein detects exotic matter does it not?"** she asked.

 **"It does, but that's what I don't get, why are the storms triggering it? That is something that is really baffling me at this time"** the engineer voiced his concerns.

 **"Well, there is one explanation, the storms actually contain exotic matter. Nevertheless, I thought that would be obvious for you. The problem with that statement is the word… why"** Tina looked at the Doppler data that the satellites were putting out.

 **"I don't know but maybe you have an idea. I need to go to the other universe to give Kara her upgraded suit, so I'll leave you to it"** Cisco replied.

 **"All right. Maybe I can make some headway, if I do we'll talk when you come back. If not, maybe we can track down Professor Stein to give us a hand"** Tina spoke and then closed the line. Cisco made some final adjustments to the suit and put it in her necklace, put his vibe costume on, the gauntlets as well as the glasses, concentrated on where Kara was and jumped dimensions as well to go help his friends. He returned after he had delivered his package and started to work on the strange readings that the storms kept giving out.

They rest returned Early next morning, they had managed to help Kara and Clark to put away some of the more nasty people that were on that earth and they presented a peril for the two supers. Oliver decided to spend the night at their home. The first thing the speedsters did was to come and check in on their child who, to their happiness, was asleep and content. Henry and Tina were asleep as well so the three decided to use the room in the other side of the house to not disturb them. Oliver picked a guest room had a shower and went to sleep. Barry and Caitlin did the same in their private bathroom, sneaking some kisses and touches along the way, but they were too tired to go further than that. They climbed into bed and fell asleep in each other's arms.

* * *

AN : Finally managed to get both stories into sync, at least for now. Here is a brand new chapter for you to enjoy. Since both my stories are in sync now i will be updating both of them biweekly depending on the connections between the chapter. Enjoy :)

AN2 : To Wall : Remember, i stated in the story that basically Caitlin has the same potential energy in her cells as Barry. As long as she doesnt use her killer frost powers they are evenly matched. However, as she usese those, her speed decreases, to use her own words "two light bulbs from the same battery" it might seem that is more powerful than him, if you take the complete array of powers she has, but dont forget, having the same potential energy in her cells means that if she uses all of them, she loses in power in all of them. Her character is not OP by any chance, she is balanced by her own power pool. Whereas Barry can only use his speed, it is quite obvious that while she uses her Frost powers, he will be faster and stronger with his speed than hers.


	62. Fusion

Beginning with the day that Older Barry decided to propose to Kara, when Cisco made a lot of portals to get everyone from the other universe to the party, the storms had been increasing in nature and not only above the city, but across the world. Tina was in a bind, she didn't know why the sensors would be reacting that way to them. The obvious thing was that the storms were indeed containing exotic matter, but without a closer look inside, she could not be sure. She called on Caitlin for help. She was in the lab, with her husband, Alex was sleeping soundly in the Gideon room where the two decided to make another place for him with a crib and somewhere to play. The room was secure and they were the only ones that had access to it, making sure that the baby was never out of their hands.

"Caitlin, I think you started to get worried about these exotic matter storms haven't you?" Tina asked her.

"It's troubling indeed, but do we actually know if they have exotic matter in them?" Caitlin voiced out her thoughts.

"That's something we don't know. The sensors say they do. How much of a chance to we have that the sensors are wrong?" the physicist asked her.

"Not a large one, if they are indeed broken then it means the satellite cannot track any more breaches with electro photography, which leaves us with a large problem" Frost replied looking rather baffled at yet another alert that popped up, this time somewhere near Star City.

"You mean someone actually coming to here from another universe without us getting any sort of warning. That was what you`re thinking about aren't you?" Tina realized what she was saying.

"Yea, we have had people like that already. A while back an intelligent gorilla we sent to earth 2. Harry's earth came back and blew up Central City" She said nonchalantly making the physicist lose it

"What do you mean blew up. We're still here aren't we?" she voiced and then realized "You went back in time to fix it didn't you?"

 **"First rule of time travel, Tina"** Caitlin looked at her with a grin.

"We don't talk about time travel. Yes I know. Thanks for not letting us get blown up by an insane gorilla" she smiled.

"Don't mention it. It's an insane, telepathic, mind controlling gorilla, by the way" She smiled making Tina's face fall.

"We need to make sure that there are indeed exotic particles in those clouds. The only person that I know for sure who can fly is you. Would you be willing to take a Doppler detector up there so we can get some readings from the center of these storms?" Tina asked her finally getting to the point she wanted to ask.

"I can try, but if there are violent winds then I don't think I can even keep it steady. Is the detector large?" Caitlin looked at her.

"Not so much, it's more like something that would be carried by a weather balloon" Tina replied.

"Then we can put it on a weather balloon. No offense to you and your powers, Cait, I know you`re indestructible, but we don't know how exotic matter can affect our physiologies and if something happens and your powers get jammed or cancelled out you will fall down like a rock. Not letting that happen. I can have Cisco prepare a weather balloon that we can send up into one of those storms" Barry was silent until now, but he spoke quite clearly and with a final tone that Caitlin knew what it meant. She was not going anywhere. He was right thought and that didn't stop her to give him a kiss for worrying about what might happen to her.

"Oh you have those? We don't so I thought it would be easier if Caitlin did it" Tina explained her decision to ask Frost directly.

"Yep, we do. We just need to wait for a storm to pop up over Central City or why not, even over STAR Labs and we can send that bad boy straight into it to see what's going on" Barry quipped. He called Cisco who was like usually down in the lab.

"Hey, Cisco, how long would it take you to prepare a weather balloon with can detect Exotic matter?"

"30 minutes or less. We already have a few balloons from that time we wanted to study the Tar snow, the rain of blood except after I made them we found out what happened, and they never got used. All I need to do is prepare the sensors" He responded immediately.

"Do it. Next time we have one of those storms that trigger our breach detection system and its anywhere near Central City we are going to launch one into it and find out what the hell is going on" Barry replied.

 **"On it"** Cisco closed the line and went back to work.

"There we go. Now all we have to do is wait for a storm" Barry gave Tina a grin.

"Do we know where Martin is? He should be able to help us figure this out. Except Clarissa told me that he's away, last time I called" Caitlin asked.

"He's probably playing time cop with the legends and Jax. I think I know how to reach him. Give me a minute" Barry ran out, was gone for a few minutes and then came back to a halt in the Cortex.

 **"What did you do?"** Caitlin asked him.

"I opened a speed portal and threw a message inside. Who knows, that might actually work" Barry cracked "Message in a bottle, see how original I am?"

"Very original indeed" a voice could be heard coming from down the hall. Sara, Ray and Professor Stein entered greeting everyone "So original that it even hit our ship. Go figure, who knew speed portals are connected to our time nexus. Here, take this" Sara gave him a PDA "So you can contact us when you need to. Stop throwing junk in the time vortex"

"I saw in the message that you had something you needed my opinion about?" Martin jumped in.

"Tina can show you, we've been having weird electrical disturbances for a while and the breach detection system has been picking them up and alerting us on them for no reason whatsoever" Barry replied. Martin went with Tina to see what the fuss was about. Ray smiled

"I want to see the baby, we're sorry we didn't have time to come when it happened, but we had a bit of an issue with Eobard and Merlyn" Caitlin flashed the baby back to the cortex phasing through the wall of the Gideon room. As Ray was playing with him Barry felt the need to ask.

"So how did you actually know when I threw that message?"

"Carbon dating. Since our Gideon has been unlocked, thanks for that by the way, it can detect which time a certain object comes from. So we just used the Wave Rider to come back to the same point. It's parked outside, cloaked and hovering over the labs" Sara smiled going over to look at the little bundle of joy "Did you see? He has your eyes" she quipped making them both laugh.

"Of course I saw that, he's my kid, come on, Sara" Barry smiled at her. "He seems to have taken a liking to you. Must be your costume" he chuckled.

"That's something. New life in the family is always a joyous event. No matter whose family it is" Ray commented "Late congratulations on the child, even if we couldn't be there to see it happening" He realized what he said and started to babble

"That's fine, Ray, nobody was there to see it happen. The only two people in the room were me and two of him" Caitlin chuckled.

 **"What do you mean, two of him?"** Sara looked strangely at the speedster.

"I can make duplicates of me called time remnants. So I had my remnant deliver the child while I held her hand. Helps a ton when you have and obstetrics specialty" Barry smiled brightly at the blonde woman. Sara gave him the stink eye.

"Barry Allen, you're sure you aren't screwing up with the timeline by using those? I really don't want to clean up your messes" she replied.

"You`re speaking to the wrong Barry Allen. The only time we actually travelled in time was by accident and a long time ago. The one who created this timeline is the me that is no longer here. Remember?" The speedster quipped making Sara chuckle. Tina and Professor Stein came back quite worried.

"We have a problem. Those storms you've been seeing, they seem to be the result of a resonance cascade between two universes. They are being pushed one into the other and the storms are the universe's way of telling you that the two worlds are starting to merge. We need to be sure there is exotic matter in one of those weather phenomena. I am pretty sure that exotic matter leaks are happening everywhere, but being in space they are significantly harder to detect. The ones on earth however are reacting with the atmosphere, and giving power to those anomalies" Martin said with urgency in his voice pointing at one of the storms.

"We already have a balloon standing by, when there's a storm above Central City we will send that up and see what's in that storm" Barry explained.

"I'm afraid that we can't afford to wait. We need to know as soon as possible. Sara, does the Wave Rider has the capability of detecting exotic matter?" The professor asked quite bluntly.

 **"Gideon?"** She asked through the communicator

"Yes, Sara. The ship has that ability. We can be on our way as soon as you can detect another storm" the AI had been listening in through her communicator and offered a solution.

"Is there any chance the Wave Rider will be damaged by those discharges if they indeed contain exotic particles?" Ray asked the AI.

"Unknown at this time. That particular type of energy that the particles produce has not been thoroughly tested with the ship's capabilities. Nobody actually thought to jump dimensions with it. It was a time master ship" the Ai responded pretty bluntly.

 **"Cheeky AI"** Caitlin smiled

"Since Barry unlocked her she has been exhibiting personality traits. She even helped us on one of our missions on her own. She saved our asses, which is why we don't really look at her as a ship anymore, more like her own person" Sara explained what had happened ever since Christmas.

 **"Your friend – ship?"** Barry tried to make a pun but the others just gave him the stink eye **"Come on it was a decent pun"** he tried to excuse himself.

 **"I liked it"** Gideon chimed in from the communicator making everyone laugh

"Well then it's settled. Well take in the Wave Rider and see what we can find. Professor Stein, what happens if those storms are indeed loaded with exotic energy and their sensors aren't actually screwed?" Ray inquired curiously.

"The universes will continue to vibrate closer and closer until they will finally merge. At that point who knows what will happen. One might be destroyed, both may be destroyed or, best case scenario, they merge without much problem and that's it" He replied.

"We need to find out which universe it is. Can we detect the frequency and what started the merger in the first place?" Barry asked looking at Cisco who was the person that handled dimensional travel in the team.

"I can try. There should be something that will leave a trail to where and when that happened. Come on, I can try to use my glasses to detect what's happening" He left toward the pedestal room. Caitlin took Alex back to the Gideon room to sleep after she had been feeding him while the other talked. The formula seemed to be quite effective in keeping the young speedster's metabolism at a good level.

While in the pedestal room with his powers enhanced Cisco managed to see what happened that lead to this. He vibed and he saw an image of Grodd and of the woman that had his powers in jumping dimensions back when they tried to blow up central city. She had opened a breach, but it had never closed. The energy that was keeping the event horizon visible dissipated but the connection was still active. The breach grew and grew in size until it encompassed the whole earth at which point the universe that it was tied to started to shift frequencies. He looked through the mires of the multiple universes and saw where the other side of the portal was going and suddenly everything became clear.

"Shit. Back when Grodd escaped my duplicate power user blasted them to earth 38. Why there? I got no clue, but the breach never closed. It grew and their dimension started to vibrate in tune with ours. The other dimension that is now on the point of merging with ours, is Kara's earth" Cisco said with dread in his eyes.

 **"Well that's a bugger"** Ray commented. The alarms started again on the monitors and they could see that there was a storm that was above National City.

 **"Coincidence?"** Barry asked.

"More than likely. But we should go check it out anyway" Sara replied. "Let's get to the ship and we can see what we need to do from there"

 **"We'll stay here. There's not much we can help you with. We just need the 411 on the storms"** Barry and Caitlin replied to the group. Sara agreed and they immediately left for the ship and took off.

"Don't you think we should call Kara and tell her what's happening?" Caitlin looked at her husband.

 **"Yea, I think we should"** The reply came. Barry took his cell and dialed the other universe with the help of the cortex computer, but the line didn't connect **"I think because of the merger, that universe doesn't have the frequency that the communicator was set to. We can no longer contact them. I'm guessing they can't do that either"**

 **"I can't see into earth 38. The frequencies are all messed up"** Cisco told them while trying to tune in to see how Kara and the other Barry were doing.

"Then I guess all we can do right now and sit and wait. Until the Wave rider comes back we have nothing to do. Even if they come up with something, I doubt we can prevent what can happen next. Total destruction, partial or merger. We just need to hope that both universes don't get vaporized" Caitlin said with a bit of fear in her voice. She was indeed afraid, everything they had, their family, their child, him. They could be gone in an instant. She calmed down however when she realized that it didn't matter if they disappeared. At least nobody would know the pain of loss. They would all turn to cosmic dust in a matter of the blink of an eye. She took his hand and he could feel her fear about what was going to happen.

 **"You all right?"** Barry asked looking with large eyes at his wife.

"No. I'm not. That damn gorilla did this, what happens if the universe just disappears? After all we've been through to get to this point, it all goes poof. Me, You, Alex, everyone, because some stupid gorilla wanted to blow up the planet" She said visibly frustrated at what happened.

"It won't happen. You know what we have to do if it does" Barry told her with steel eyes.

 **"You mean travel back in time and stop them. Don't you?"** Caitlin looked to him to see if their thoughts were the same.

"Yes. That's what I mean. I don't know if the speed force will be all right with that. But we aren't talking about a city anymore, we are talking about two universes. That is way more than I think even they bargained for" Barry replied looking at the monitors where the storms had increased in magnitude

"I know. Let's hope, for all our sakes that this merger turns out to me the best case scenario. To be honest I would indeed like to live with Kara on the same earth. It would stop the annoying usage of those breach generators and we could always go visit them anytime. We have the speed" Caitlin was smiling, the thought of them living in the same place was something that she actually wanted. It would be fun indeed.

"I know. I guess we have to hope for the best. Professor Stein and Tina are the best at what they do. Maybe they can create something that will tell us when the universes will become one and how much time we have. IF not we might just have to run back in time nonetheless. I hate probabilities" Barry replied taking his wife into his arms giving her a big hug.

Meanwhile on the Wave Rider, Professor Stein and Tina were hard at work. The ship managed to get close enough to one of the storms so that they could detect what was inside.

"Dr. McGee, look at this, the amount of exotic matter is diminishing with every lightning strike" Martin showed her something on the screen.

"Call me Tina, Martin. No need for formalities when the world is about to either be destroyed or end as we know it" the aging physicist told the professor "Yes, I've noticed, that is something that I was thinking about too. Could the decay rate and the quantity of the exotic matter be used as something akin to a clock?"

"You mean a countdown to disaster? We can try. Gideon?" Martin talked to the AI.

"Yes, Professor, what can I help you with?" the reply came almost immediately.

"Can you calculate, based on the series of equations that we have put on the board, the exotic matter decay and the total power of these storms, a completion time for the universal merger?" Stein was visibly distraught at the whole thing.

"Give me a moment" the Ai spoke and then the console turned off. After about 7 minutes Gideon came back. "Yes. The completion time is 21 hours 35 minutes. A warning however, due to the inconsistent exotic matter decay and the approximate rate of which the storms are appearing, this countdown might be off by as much as 10%" The Ai continued.

"Understood. Keep monitoring the storms and the decay using the STAR satellite and adjust the countdown accordingly" Tina told the transparent image.

"Very well, Dr. McGee. Do you wish to forward this information to STAR Labs?" Gideon asked unfazed by what was happening

"Yes. Also let Barry and Caitlin know that we are going to be back pretty soon" Martin responded to the AI.

"Gideon, can you calculate the chances of the tree outcomes that might pop up from this universal merger?" Stein asked with a bit of home in his eyes.

"No, Professor. There are too few defined variables in that sense. Without more data I cannot corroborate any sort of analysis base. The only way we could gather enough data is if we travel to the other universe and get readings there as well. Which is not possible given the state of flux that we are seeing" The AI responded quite bluntly.

Back at STAR Labs a large clock appeared on the screen that the two speedsters were looking at. Barry and Caitlin looked over the data that was sent from the Wave Rider and nodded. They had a little under a day to decide if they were going to travel back in time and prevent all of this, or not.

"A little under a day, huh? I don't think that's the main issue sadly. We have no way of knowing what the merger will do to us. I say we don't risk it and go back now and try to catch Grodd before that happens" Barry stated

"I think we should wait. Things might start happening that could show us what the outcome will be. If they are bad, you know, things start disappearing or dissolving, dimensional vibrations get out of whack and people start experiencing déjà vu or double vision, then we can consider that. Remember what Menace told us. We might get punished as well for trying to alter the timeline" Caitlin reasoned with her husband

 **"All right them, we wait"** they heard a cry thought the intercom coming from the Gideon room **"But he won't. Let's see what's up with the little guy"** After feeding Alex, Caitlin and Barry returned to the Cortex where Cisco was in full vibe gear.

"What are you doing man?" Barry asked him

"Come with me. I'm going to try to establish a link to earth 38. I need you guys because since I don't know the frequency, I need a focusing point to think about Kara. I don't think it's a good idea to zero in on your other self, Barry. Because you`re already here that might not work at all" The engineer replied. The two speedsters nodded and followed him to the pedestal room. He put his hands on his back and vibed. He could see Menace and Kara, they were all right, but above National City there was a large storm brewing. Something that he had seen before and didn't really want to see again. It was clear that whatever was happening on this earth it was happening on their earth as well.

 **"How are they?"** Caitlin asked.

"Don't worry, they're fine, but their earth is having storms as well. It's clear that something is happening. The frequencies keep shifting, I managed to hold the vibe for less than a minute till I lost it, which means the shift is quite violent. But I don't know in which earth, our or theirs" Cisco replied putting his hands back on the two speedsters. The image came back for a bit, older Barry and Kara were moving through the streets helping people that were injured. The storms weren't bad but they had a lot of lightning strikes that destroyed stuff. Some people got in the way or were in the way of the pieces of buildings that went off, causing injuries.

"I'm glad they're ok" Barry spoke looking at the engineer "Think you can make a portal to there?"

"I wouldn't even try at this point. I can only keep the vibes for a minute which means the portal are going to be unstable and close very quickly. I really don't want anyone to find out what it's like to be caught between dimensions" He replied with a worried face.

"You mean they could literally be caught in the corridor when it closes? Is that even possible?" Caitlin asked quite surprised.

"I don't know and I don't want to find out. The two are fine, just doing their superhero work. I couldn't see more" the engineer stated quite openly

"That should be enough. I'm glad they're all right. Now, out of curiosity. Do you think your powers could close the breach that Grodd made that time?" Barry inquired.

"If it was a normal size? Yeah more than likely, but this one is encompassing the whole earth. I don't have that kind of power, if I did I would have done that a long time ago" he frowned. Barry looked at Caitlin with steel eyes. Cisco instantly recognized that look. It was the look Menace had in his eyes when he first saw him "I hope you aren't entertaining the idea of going back and stopping Grodd before he opens that breach, are you?"

"The thought has crossed our mind" Barry answered

"I would suggest you don't do anything stupid. We don't know how the fabric of time and the parallel universes tie into one another. You going back might be the thing that starts this shit in the first place. Even if it's not, you might end up creating another parallel universe from the timeline that you tried to avoid. The risks are too great" the engineer looked at the two speedsters

"So am I just supposed to sit and watch until all this is over with the risk that I might lose everyone that I love?" Barry said visibly frustrated.

"Yes. For all we know about causality, the fact that you go back could erase us anyway because of some great universal hitch we don't know about. Remember there are always risks to doing this" Cisco reminded him that he could ruin everything before all finished.

Something happened at the moment Cisco finished his sentence. Barry and Caitlin in their dilated time scape saw Barry almost split in half, but the image that he created wasn't something they recognized, it was like a ghost that ran out the door. The two were stunned, they had never seen anything like it before. It was like they ghosted, like when travelling back in time, but usually that required running, now it was like the person just split and left.

 **"Did you see that?"** Barry asked his wife

"I did. What the hell was it?" she responded.

 **"It looked like one of my time remnants, but like a ghost"** he replied. The engineer was looking quite worried at them.

"Did Barry just ghost?" he asked

"Well, no because we never moved which means something else happened that is not related to time travel, but yes, what we saw was similar to a ghost" Caitlin replied to the engineer. The others entered the cortex, they had come back from the Wave Rider. The clock was going nuts. At first it was 23 hours, then 10, then 4 then back to 16. The two speedster were confused.

 **"Why is the countdown doing that?"** Barry asked Stein the moment he came into view.

"We had Gideon calculate a countdown for the merge, but since its dependent on the rate of exotic matter release, that's why the clock is going haywire" He replied looking at it.

"Gideon, are you here?" Caitlin asked.

"Hello, Dr. Allen. Yes, I can interface with the STAR computers and appear anywhere in the building. How may I help you?" The AI politely asked her.

"Is there any chance you can use the law of averages compounded with a progressive adaptive calculation matrix that will somehow stabilize the clock or at least make it jump less?" She inquired, having Stein and Sara look at her like she was speaking gibberish.

"Yes, Dr. Allen. Do you want me to apply it to the current calculations?" The question came.

"Please do. Use all available resources except those required to control the engines and the cloak. We need that answer ASAP" Caitlin spoke clearly.

 **"Understood"** The Ai disappeared and the countdown clock stopped at 10 hours 35 minutes. What Caitlin asked seemed to last for a long while and then Gideon reappeared in the cortex. **"Calculations are done, Dr. Allen. Do you want me to display the result?"** The Ai asked and Caitlin nodded. The countdown reset itself for 1 hours 11 minutes and started counting down. **"According to the analysis, the bursts of exotic matter are becoming more and more aggressive. The tears between the two dimensions have already actualized"**

 **"What do you mean, have already actualized?"** Barry asked with a weird face. Gideon pulled up a satellite image of National City. There was new building that the people here didn't recognize, but Barry and Caitlin instantly smiled. **"I see. The universes are already starting to blend into one another"**

"That is correct, Barry Allen. Requesting access to the STAR satellites for confirmation around other cities as well" The AI replied.

 **"Make yourself a login and take what you need, Gideon"** Caitlin answered the request. The Ai nodded and after a few minutes other images started appearing on screen.

"As you can see, features that are already in this universe remain here, however some other landmarks have appeared. I can now answer with a 75% probability to the question you initially asked about the three outcomes of the merger" The AI replied and the two nodded instantly "It seems that there will be indeed a fusion of the universes, nothing has been destroyed on this side and the landmarks from the other side started appearing. This indicates that there will most likely be no damage, landmarks that appear here will remain and the ones that are already on the other side will start popping in. I'm also detecting six more STAR Labs buildings in the cities that have appeared. Palo Alto, California, in a new city that has appeared apparently called Gotham, in another new city that is called Metropolis, San Francisco, California, Phoenix, Arizona and Austin, Texas. All of them seem to be your property"

"Gideon, can we make the jump into the time stream while the merger is occurring?" Sara asked

"We could, but it is not advised. The time streams of the two universes are now converging. Trying now to get into the time vortex could result in the Wave Rider being caught between the vortexes of the two time streams effectively being lost in time. I do not recommend we try any sort of time jump until after the universes become one" The Ai clearly stated the dangers of them trying to do something like that. Through the cameras the two speedsters saw that there were large problems in the city due to the lightning strikes.

"We need to go help those people. You are welcome to stay until the birth of the new world, play a game, look at a movie, do something to pass the time. Or you can take care of Alex for the bit that we have to go out" Barry smirked at Sara, The two flashed out and went into the city where they had a lot of people with small injuries because of falling masonry and stuff that were coming off the buildings because of the lightning strikes. The two could see them clearly in their slowed time scape and rushed as fast as they could to get the people out of their way. Suddenly the skies stared to clear, the lightning stopped and the storm dissipated like it was never there. It gave way to a clear sky with no sign of a cloud. The couple continued to help the people that needed assistance until, finally, they returned to the Cortex. There they could see that the countdown had already reached 0 and both let out a sigh of relief that the universe didn't really end. Sara came back, the time quake detector had sent them information about a new threat and they said goodbye. It was time for them to go back to being time cops. The wave rider took off gently from the lab and straight up, disappearing after a brief shimmer back into the time stream.

The two speedsters decided to leave Alex a bit with Bette and Cisco and went to check on their friends in National City. They knew they were there and they wanted to let them know what had happened. Also welcome them to was now not their universe, or earth 38 anymore. This was now their home, all of them.


	63. Crumbs

Barry and Caitlin were in the labs looking for ways to improve the power consumption of the nanite mesh that Cisco managed to put together. They were looking at a design of a bio battery that would work as well as the one that Curtis and Tina managed to make function. Those batteries, while working beautifully, they still had the added risk of explosion when hit and that was something that was annoying the two speedsters. They were not comfortable outfitting the police force and the fire fighters with mini bombs the power of a tactical nuke. Both parents kept an eye on their child which seemed to be developing quite normally, the accelerated pregnancy was probably a product of Caitlin's body and the child having powers. The metabolism was accelerated inside the womb and the growth was precipitated by the concentrated speed force in her system. That's what Barry concluded at least from the test he ran.

Much to their surprise they got a phone call from his other self pretty early asking him about Felicity's number. They passed it on and went back to their own work, until they got a call from Joe.

"Hey you two. We have a pretty strange murder over here. Nothing that I've seen before. Maybe we can get some backup from the CSI squad?" He chuckled on the phone.

"I'll take care of Alex. You already fed him and he's sleeping so there shouldn't be any issue if you leave for an hour or two" Bette smiled at the couple. She had just entered the Cortex looking for Cisco

 **"Thanks, Bette, you`re a lifesaver"** Barry smiled toward her and the two flashed to the crime scene post haste taking one of the CSI kits that they kept around the Cortex for emergencies.

When they got there they couldn't see a body, just a large puddle of blood with some guts and some black candles.

"I take it the blood, guts and black candles are why you wanted us here?" Barry looked at his adoptive father quite awkwardly

"Well, yes, isn't it obvious? We need to find what happened here, if anything. Could have been a brawl, a shanking, there is no body so maybe someone cut a person up and threw it in the trash … you know" Joe replied.

"Joe, you know we're not Mulder and Scully, right? Sure the crime scene is weird, but that's not a reason to think something nefarious has gone on here" Caitlin laughed and Joe chuckled at the reference. Barry already started to gather samples of blood, piece or candles and using his super speed to check all the dumpsters around just in case there was a body somewhere in one of them.

"This does indeed look like a murder site, but there are signs that there might have been some light torture on the side. See these teeth?" Caitlin pointed to something that Barry had collected "They were pulled out, while whoever or whatever was at the other end was alive. These don't look like human teeth though, we might be dealing with some sort of alien or an animal"

"I'm going to take some pictures of the site as well. We have someone that can tell us if this was indeed some magic ritual of some description or if they are just idiots torturing people." Barry added and took out his camera and got to work

 **"Magic? I thought that wasn't real"** Joe looked crooked at the two speedsters

"Yes, because rains of blood happen normally. There is magic, Joe, we have dealt with it before, first with Oliver and later when the black snow appeared here. We have a friend who might be able to tell us if that is the case" Caitlin replied ending the string of questions from him. As Barry finished taking pictures she continued. "We'll go back to the lab and analyze what we found and we'll keep you posted. If we find out this is indeed magic, then we'll let you know so you steer clear of this case, all right?"

 **"Perfect. Thanks, Caitlin"** Joe responded and the two flashed away to the lab. They got to process the evidence as fast as they could, since they didn't know what kind of threat this might pose. The blood they collected was not human, it was pig's blood and the teeth that they found pulled out were from a rabbit. Those things seemed oddly non related, so Barry decided to call Zatanna.

"Hey. I'm going to send you some pictures about a strange murder site we found this morning. Can you see if there are any traces or anything that would signify that there was a magic user involved?" He spoke softly

"Hey, Barry. Yea, Sure. I did tell you to call with magic related stuff didn't I?" She chuckled. Barry sent the photos and after a few minutes he got a call back. "Did you find out what the blood was?"

"Pig's blood. Not human. The teeth were from a rabbit and the black candles are just your garden variety. Nothing special about them" Caitlin replied.

"Hello to you too, Caitlin. The ingredients you just described are indeed used by witches, but the problem is most spells search for something specific and usually from the same animal. Having pig and rabbit seems a bit odd, unless someone decided to make his own spell. My conclusion would be that you are probably dealing with an amateur, if it's even a magic user, someone who is trying to learn, but doesn't really possess the magic required to be dangerous. Again, I can't stress this enough. It might not even be related to magic, just some guy that has a fetish for blood" Zatanna explained about what she was thinking about.

"I see. Thank you for the help. We'll investigate further see if this leads somewhere and in case we do discover something else that might lead us to a magical path, I'll give you a call again" Barry thanked the young mage

 **"No problem. Call if you need me. Take care"** She replied and closed the line. It didn't last long and the couple got a call back from the other Barry.

"Hey. So … it turns out that we might need your help after all" he spoke

"What do you need?" Caitlin asked

"Can you have Barry run to the DEO and ask for a cell sample of someone called Maggie Sawyer and bring it back to STAR Labs? They can call me or Kara if they need confirmation. Also there is some alien tissue that we can't quite pinpoint. That would be helpful to have your input on. The main thing we need is see if you can find out from the cells of that woman if she is a clone or anything that might have been grown" older Barry replied.

 **"Is she someone you know?"** Caitlin asked **_"You heard all that?"_** she thought to her partner that was on the other side of the room

 **"I did. I'm on my way"** Barry took off with a large whoosh to National City to get the samples.

"She is Alex's girlfriend. The problem is Alex is gone and we can't find her. We initially thought that she was on vacation with said girlfriend, until we found an alien pod with the person inside. We want to know if that is the real one, a clone, something grown, a hybrid or anything else of the sorts. We would have done it ourselves, but we have left National this morning to try to track her across the country. We're in Metropolis now" Kara explained in detail from the other side of the line, thinking that every detail is more than likely useful.

"I see, so you`re worried about your sister. Ok, Barry is already on his way to get the samples you asked. I'll have Cisco make the system alert us if it detects Alex anywhere in or near Central City and I'll call you later with the results of our tests." Caitlin replied immediately, she looked over at Alex's crib. The little one had woken up and started to cry. It usually meant that he wanted food, but she wanted to see what was up "Have to go, Alex needs to eat. I'll talk to you when we finish"

 **"Thank you, we'll be waiting"** the reply from the other side and Caitlin closed the line going to see what's up with their child.

After a few minutes Barry had already flashed into the DEO where he met Winn and J`onn that were trying to decipher the mysteries of the pod that Maggie was in.

 **"Hey, I need a sample of the claw that Barry found and some blood from Maggie. There's no problem if I just take them, right?"** He asked and the two looked at him rather confused. Then they saw the emblem on his chest. The lightning bolt and the snowflake and they realized who he was.

"Oh, hey Barry. Why do you need those?" Winn asked.

"Kara asked Caitlin and I to conduct an analysis on what I requested. He wants to know if maybe I can find anything else from a sample of the claw. He also wants to know if the Maggie you have here is just a clone or the real thing. Since neither of them are geneticists, they thought that calling us in would be a good idea" He replied nonchalantly.

 **"Take what you need. That is actually a good question. We don't know if she's a clone or the real thing"** J`onn replied and the speedster was back in a few seconds with three vials of blood and some scrapings from the claw.

"Ok, I'm going back. Thanks for the help" He turned to speed out.

 **"No problem. Let us know as well, here's my number in case you need to call here** " Winn told him. They exchanged numbers and Barry left back for Central City. A few minutes later he was back in the cortex with the samples while Caitlin was changing diapers. He managed to catch her in the extended time scape. She usually did it at high speed just for the comfort of it. Barry called Joe.

"We have the evidence from that crime scene. Whoever's nearest to the lab can come get it. It was just pig's blood and rabbit teeth. Our magical consultant doesn't think that there is any danger, but be careful. If it's indeed an amateur then that could spell more trouble than a pro" the speedster told the detective.

"That's fine. I'll send Eddie over, he's going to have lunch with Iris either way" Joe replied

"All right. Talk to you later. Let us know if you find weird pig blood puddles in other parts of town" Barry chuckled and closed the line. "Cait, I brought the samples back from National. You want me to take care of Alex so you can get to work on them?"

"No we can both can, now that the little rascal has been fed and changed he's already half asleep. Let me just get him there and we can start" She smiled cooing the baby in her arms and trying to sing him a song. Barry was surprised, he knew her voice would usually be pretty bad, but when she was singing lullabies to their son she sounded like an angel. He shrugged it off, remembering how his mother sounded to him when he was little. After about an hour, the two managed to get the baby to sleep and started to work on the samples that were brought back from National.

Eddie came by later. He walked into the Cortex not expecting what he was about to see. The two speedsters were up to their normal routine when working on something. The lightning dance was in full effect. The blonde man looked at them and stood there for a good couple of minutes not entering the cortex afraid not to make the beautiful light display disappear. Cisco came up behind him and he pointed at what was going on in the cortex with a quizzical look on his face.

"We know. They do that all the time" The engineer smiled.

"I wouldn't know, but it is beautiful" the cop replied finally stepping inside the room at which point both flashes stopped. "Hey, came by to get that file with the evidence you got" He quipped "By the way, nice light show you put on back there"

"It's something we have been told we do when we get to work together on something. The file is on the center console. Do us a favor, will you? Can you put an APB on a detective from National City called Maggie Sawyer and Kara's sister, Alex?" Barry asked the detective continuing to look at the console where he was working

 **"Sure, why?"** Eddie was a bit surprised.

"Kara called and it seems that her sister has disappeared and her girlfriend was found in a pod somewhere underground. So we might have a fake Maggie Sawyer running around. It would be good if we catch her when she comes into the city, if she ever does that. Also, if we find Alex in the process that would be very helpful" Caitlin replied to what her husband had said.

"Ok, no problem. I'll talk to Singh and we can see what we can do. Thank for getting these done so fast. We were worried that we might have had a psychopath in the city" The detective voiced his worries.

"Well, let's hope he doesn't evolve to humans and stick to animals. Even though, those animals have done nothing wrong. You have to be a special kind of nutso to do that to a rabbit" She pointed at the evidence bag. Eddie thanked them and left. The couple continued to test the blood and the claw.

The results were rather unexpected. The claw had another pair of DNA nucleotides that were not present anywhere in nature. The way that the sequences were presenting themselves could not have come from a human in any case. Night had fallen and the two decided to go back home and get some rest. The baby gave them no problems during their sleep, he would get up at his usual 6 hour interval and demand food, but that was it. Except the usual changing and bathing, he was pretty much a model baby which made the proud parents happy to no end. He did not catch any kind of bugs, they did manage to find in his system a collection of antibodies that he had got from Caitlin which were pretty ravenous. Barry was afraid that they could start some sort of auto immune disease and attack the child, but nothing of that manner happened, if anything they were doing their job all too well. The little one didn't even catch a sniffle.

The next morning the tests that were more comprehensive and needed more time, finished running, as the two speedsters got back to the lab.

"I don't think she's a clone. The genetic workup is way too perfect. We don't have her genetic profile to analyze for any genetic defects, so from what I gather, she is pretty much human. There are none of the usual abnormalities that you would see in a clone. At least from the research we know" Barry concluded.

"I agree, there is nothing more we can get out of this genetic material. We should call back Barry and tell him what we found" Caitlin offered and he agreed. They went outside the Cortex as to not disturb Alex's sleep.

"Hey, bro. I got the results of what you wanted us to check" Barry told his double with a chuckle

 **"Go ahead, Kara is listening too"** they could hear the familiar clacking of the phone being put on speaker.

"The sample I got from detective Sawyer seems to be free of any abnormalities whatsoever. Nothing to indicate that she is a clone. So, there could be two possibilities. Either she's a clone, but a damn good one at that, not something our technology can cook up, or she is the original one, in which case the problem you two thought about could be very real" Barry told him rather bluntly

"Anything on the samples from that claw?" Kara inquired softly

"Nothing. You were correct, it is indeed alien, but we don't have any sort of alien classification system that we could use that on. Maybe talk to Winn and get him to talk to Cisco into getting that incorporated in our system do we can help better next time" Caitlin decided to chime in

"We found out what that race was. They are called the dominators. Quite a nasty bunch those ones are. They usually send advanced scouts to the planet that they either want to conquer or destroy. We might have a war on our hands pretty soon" Kara said with a really annoyed tone.

"If that's the case then we should all gather and discuss whatever plan of attack we should have in case that happens. I'll continue to check for information on those dominators. Let you know if I find anything" The speedster replied to the blonde

"Thank you. We'll share whatever info we come across in our search for my sister as well" Kara assured them.

"All right. Be safe and good luck. Call us if you need any sort of help with anything" Barry replied and closed the line "We don't have any sort of reference when aliens are concerned"

"We'll have to talk to Winn and at least get the data from them, although they are a government organization, they might not be able to cooperate with us unless we sign something. As you know, I'm not fond of signing any government fine prints" Caitlin said with a disgusted face.

"Neither do I, sweetie. I don't like the amount of things that need to go when you talk to the military. Nevertheless, we could get some data, or at least have someone to ask about all of this. I think it's time that we talk to Lyla. We should go to the ARGUS Base in Star City and see if they have something on these aliens. If they do, we can plan later what we should do with them" Barry said with a smirk on his face. Barry took out his phone and dialed in Lyla.

"Lyla, hey. We have a little … issue that you could help us with. Do you hold classified information about alien encounters?" Barry asked quite nonchalantly.

"What do you mean, alien encounters, we all know there are aliens on earth now, so why would we have something like that" The voice seemed surprised.

"Because this species isn't yet known. We had to get the data from somewhere else and even then all we got was a name. Nothing more. Have you ever heard of the dominators?" Caitlin inquired

"We have. What proof do you have of their involvement?" She asked with a very worried voice.

"We have their DNA on file. That is how we got proof. We had someone who is familiar with aliens analyze it and they came up with that name. What can you tell us about them?" Barry wanted to know more about the aliens that Kara told them about.

"Not over the phone. Me and Diggle will take a car and come to Central City. We have a lot to discuss about those aliens. We'll be there in a few hours" She replied form the other end of the line and the couple could hear her bark some orders.

"Don't need a car. Talk to Felicity and take the STAR West Jet. You'll be here way sooner. We need to know more about these creatures. They tried to abduct someone that is close to us to use for study. That is never good" Caitlin said with a really concerned tone.

 **"All right. We'll be there as soon as we can"** The line closed and the two speedsters started to get worried hearing about what she had to say.

"Somehow I think the government has known about this threat for a long time. Which means they either cooperated with them or the higher chains of command are already infiltrated with collaborators. This is bad" Barry said to his wife mentally while they were checking in on their son.

"See? This is why I hate idiots. Politicians would do anything to save their skin, including collaborating with an invading force. I'd bet my shield that is the case now. But I want to stay hopeful. We should see what Lyla has and after that we can judge. They might have only been collecting data and nothing more" Caitlin replied.

"We should call the others and tell them to join us. They all need to know about this." Barry stated quite bluntly and he got a nod in return. He immediately dialed in Kara.

"Kara, take J`onn and Barry and come to Central City. We talked to one of our other sources in another firm that works for the government. She sounded pretty worried when we mentioned the dominators and told us that they have more data to share, but it can't be done over the phone because it's classified. You should come over to us so you can have as much information as we are going to get. Whatever those aliens are planning might not have immediate effects, but having the same information might prove invaluable" He told the blonde with a voice that was more commanding rather than asking

"How fast do you need us to be there?" Older Barry asked.

"Lyla and Diggle are coming over in the STAR Jet tonight. You can come over now, just take some clothes so you have in what to sleep. We have more than enough room in the penthouse for you" Caitlin replied from the other side of the line.

 **"All right. Were on our way"** J`onn replied form the other side of the line and the call was closed. Caitlin called Oliver and Felicity and explained the problem calling them to the meet up as well.

"I think we might need to call Clark on this one too. Extra help is never a bad idea" Caitlin looked at her husband who agreed. He phoned the man as well

"Hey Clark, It's Barry" The speedster spoke

"Hey. How are you guys, we haven't spoken in a while" The question came with a quite cheery voice.

"Not so good. We might have an alien invasion on our hands and we might need your help" Caitlin explained.

"You mean that whole Dominator thing? Yeah Kara came by here and explained everything when she was looking for Alex. When and where do you need me to come? I want to be there if we're going to make some sort of plan against them" He replied instantly with a very determined voice.

"Come tonight to Central City, you should be able to find STAR Labs pretty easily. Kara and my twin will be here as well, J`onn as well as the Green Arrow and some of his crew. I talked to someone in the government who has a bit more insight on these dominators then we thought. Any sort of information at this point might prove crucial" the speedster told Superman.

"Agreed. Especially when we're against an enemy which we know nothing about. We might even have to create something that will work in the event of a global invasion. Like some sort of … league" Kal replied.

"We'll see about that. That seems like a good idea. How about we see how we fare together against the aliens and then we can talk about some sort of permanent organization type deal" Barry chuckled. He knew that people like Oliver might have a problem with that sort of organization, but since he fit so well in the family they all had, there shouldn't be a problem.

"That's a good afterthought. We need to see how we work together and then we can decide if we want anything like that. I'll be in Central City tonight. Do I have any place to stay in case our meeting … takes longer than expected? I'm not as fast as you guys and it will take me a few hours to get back to Metropolis" Kal asked

"We have a penthouse with 8 rooms. I think you'll have where to sleep. If we run out of space I can always get you a room at a hotel, so make sure to bring some regular clothes when you come into town, just for that specific scenario" Barry told his friend

"Gotcha. I'll be there. Talk to you soon, Barry" Superman replied and closed the line.

"There we go. We got me and you, Barry and Kara, Oliver and Speedy, if she's coming and Kal" Caitlin voiced his thoughts as she summarized the people that were on their way.

"Should we call Sara and the others as well?" Barry thought out loud.

"I don't know, but they do have a ship, maybe we'll need to go into space. This is an alien invasion after all. I guess we should at least talk to them." Caitlin told her husband.

"All right. I'll sent them a message through that device they left with us. They should be here. If there are so many people then we won't have space at STAR for all of them . WE need a larger location" The speedster realized immediately

"We can use the large warehouse the labs have outside the city. That should prove adequate. Later we can even remodel it so it can be a command center for joint operations like this" She almost read his mind, which made him smile immediately. Alex had woken up and he demanded food, so the two broke the discussion up and went to go take care of their child. While they were doing that Cisco and Bette came into the cortex.

"You guys speak so loudly that even the echoes travel all the way through the labs. What was that about? Why are you calling the other people here? Is there some sort of emergency?" The engineer asked rather worried.

"Yes. It seems that hostile aliens that want to invade the earth do indeed exist. Must be another Friday in Central City. We called everyone because initially we found out from Barry and Kara that one of them had abducted her sister. After we knew their names, Lyla said she had more information about them. That's why we called this summit. Cisco, is that warehouse outside the City that STAR still in one piece?" Barry inquired

"Yes, it should be rather empty now, since most of the storage we keep is here at the labs. I wanted to have it retrofitted into something else, but it didn't seem like we needed another cortex, so I let it go" Cisco voiced his reasons for leaving the warehouse alone.

"We might need another command center like we have here. Can you design and build something like that in the confines of the warehouse? Or do you need to rebuild the whole thing?" Caitlin wanted to see if it was possible what Barry was thinking.

"If you want a secure building, the warehouse has everything you might need. The walls are reinforced and double layered, the back is the same, the front can be outfitted with bullet proof glass and another set of protection. We can work with what we have there. But you do need to tell us what you need" Bette voiced

"I think I know. You want something similar to the cortex except bigger. I have a few ideas" Cisco smiled brightly.

"Good, draw up a plan of what you think and we can go over it together and see what we can add or take out depending on who or what we need in there." Barry saw the engineer's face light up with the ideas that were going through his head. The two left the Cortex and left the Allens to take care of their son.

"You thought the same way I did when Clark asked you about that league thing didn't you?" Caitlin smiled at Barry

"Yeah. The only one who would have a problem with that would be Oliver, although now that he has Felicity and Speedy is with Ray he seems to have mellowed out a bit. We already know how we work together, remember that time when we helped Kal with the Metallos?" He thought to her.

"Yes, I know what you mean, that seemed to be a really good indication of how we work, and to be fair, I do think we work pretty well together, even with J`onn and Kal which are, well friends, but not yet part of this crazy ass group that we call family, yet" She smiled to him handing him Alex to hold while she got a second bottle for him.

"While that is true, this is very different. If Kara is right and the information she found was true, this could mean a global invasion. We can't just be here and help the country, we will need to go global. That includes a whole other level of logistics and work. As it stands now we just have our own cities to take care of. Imagine how it will be when we have ALL cities to take care of" Barry looked a bit sad when he spoke.

"I can feel that, you know. Why the sadness? This will be the greatest gathering of heroes on the face of the planet?" Caitlin looked a bit surprised at him

"I just don't know if that will take away from the time we have with our son. He is the most important thing in our life. I don't want him to remember his childhood mostly being around being aunts and uncles and not his mother and father" Barry voiced and Caitlin came up to him holding him tight. She had the same worry like he did

"I know what you mean. Nevertheless, we can always take time off for him, there will be enough people that can take care of the world in our absence if that will ever become an issue. Our son comes ahead of everything. You know that. I know you grew up without a father and that you are worried that this child will maybe have the same fate if we do this. Don't. You are a great dad and to be fair … you did forget something very important" Caitlin grinned at him with the face of someone who actually had a plan.

 ** _"So what did I forget?"_** He asked with a surprised face.

"Our son doesn't have to ever be alone. We can make copies of ourselves, remember? We can always have you and me here while we're off saving the planet. Sure that will take out a lot of energy, but it's still better than leaving our son alone or people to die because we couldn't be there" She smiled sheepishly giving him a long soft kiss.

"Oh, right, how did I even forget that? We can even send the remnants to take care of business for us if needed. That could work our swimmingly. You, my dear Cait, are a genius" Barry responded while the kiss still kept going on and on.

Older Barry, Kara and J`onn arrived in the cortex a bit earlier than expected and were watching the whole thing with a large grin on their faces. The fact that those two were as in love as humanly possible and even more due to their bond was nothing that surprised the three, Older Barry looked at them and smiled brightly. His lingering doubts disappeared seeing them kiss, it was worth him coming back, way more than the punishment he received. He was ok with that. Now he had Kara and everything was all right with the world.


	64. Summit

As the two speedsters parted from their long kiss they saw the three people that were looking at them grinning. It was a bit weird for Barry seeing a version of himself with another woman watching him kiss his wife, but that feeling completely disappeared when the other him cracked a joke.

 **"Do you guys breathe through the skin or something? That lasted way longer than the average human could hold his breath"** Older him started to chuckle followed by Kara. J`onn just smirked, it was not his style, as they knew him to actually laugh.

"You aren't the first person to ask us that you know. We have no idea, last time when this happened I don't even know if we were thinking about breathing on our own" Barry replied looking at the three. Kara, as per default when she was coming here, she went straight to the crib to play with the baby, but the little one was asleep so she decided to leave him like that. The speedsters took Alex to the Gideon room so they could talk in peace without disturbing him. He seemed to be really used to being sped around, at first he started to cry and was visibly annoyed at … something, but now he didn't even care.

"You said you had something important to tell us so we came here as fast as we could. But I think we're here early. I don't see anyone else. So who are your actual sources?" J`onn asked.

"We have someone in a different government agency. Have you heard of ARGUS?" Caitlin asked the Martian

"Yeah. I have. However, I don't know much about them. All I know is they deal with metahumans on behalf of the government and their command structure is pretty tied into the Military chain of command. That's about the extent of information that I have" He shared what he knew

"Well we know the person who's running it. When we mentioned the Dominators to her she immediately recognized the name and told us she will be here to give us some information. That is why we called you here. I assume that information is classified and cannot be shared via phone" Caitlin made sure that the people knew why they were being called.

"That's what we were afraid of. They have been here before which means this isn't the first time that they got people for their experiments." Kara voices with a slight grimace on her face.

"We're going to have our meeting in a warehouse that we own. It's large enough for us to work in since there are many people that are coming. Hopefully Sara and her team managed to get my message. I'm pretty sure they might be able to help. Since we are indeed dealing with aliens having an actual ship that can fly into outer space might be something we require later on" Younger Barry told the group.

"Let us hope that we don't have to fight these guys, as Kara said, they usually don't come alone and fighting two alien races, yeah … that is not something we would want right now. Global war is nothing to joke about" Older Barry pitched in. Cisco came into the cortex and saw the guests greeting them

"Hey, everyone. Barry, I managed to get some equipment down to the warehouse and make a makeshift command center there for now. We will have to do everything I thought about later since it would take time to build everything" The engineer voiced

"Wonderful. Well, all that we can do right now is wait, since Lyla is still a ways away from Central City and the Queens are not here yet either" Caitlin told the group

"I think it would have been faster if we ran to get them. It's not like we're slow or anything" Older Barry replied looking at his younger self who grinned.

"Maybe some people don't like motion sickness. I don't know what to tell you, bro. They said they'll be here by plane, then that's what will happen" The reply came.

"Kal should be here as well later, we told him what was happening and he decided to join in the fun. Even if it's just a briefing and maybe enough time to come up with a plan for what we do about these guys" Caitlin informed the others

 **"I'm hungry"** Kara voiced, her stomach had begun to growl silently for a bit, but now it was audible. Without much thought Older Barry flashed out the door with his younger self following. When they came back, they brought pizzas, donuts and the older one brought pot stickers for his fiancée. Everyone in the cortex decided to eat since they had nothing else better to do, discussing the possibilities that this whole summit could bring.

Time passed quite fast, Barry flashed back to the Gideon room and got Alex, just so that Kara could play with him, because she was itching to do so ever since she got there. The alien blonde seemed to be superb with children, the little guy taking to her almost immediately when they first met. Older Barry joked that he hoped the tyke wouldn't have a crush on her when he grew older, kind of like another person he knew. The Allens actually started to laugh at that remark, but kind of shut up when they realized that Kara would actually be around long enough for that to happen. Kara herself through about that as being really funny, even though she loved the little guy. Barry's cell started to ring.

"We're close to Central City. The jet is going to land in about 10 minutes. Where do we come?" Felicity asked

"Nowhere. Stay there for now, we're going to come get you all and then go to the place where we're supposed to hold this little briefing." Barry replied

 **"Ok, I'll send you a text when we land so you know to come get us"** The answer came and the blonde closed the line. A few moments later a familiar person entered the Cortex leaving a bag in a corner.

"Hey. I got here as fast as I could. I sometimes wish I was as fast as you three are" Kal pointed at the three speedsters that were playing with the baby.

"We can take you home later if you want. But I know you love flying, so that would be kind of a moot point, don't you think?" Older Barry smiled at the Kryptonian who smirked back.

"You are correct. I do love flying, but sometimes in an emergency moving fast like you do is paramount. So… how are we going to do this?" Superman asked.

"This space is small, if the time cops arrive then we will most surely not have enough of it for a proper briefing. That's why we moved some stuff to a STAR warehouse that we stopped using even since we upgraded this building. That way we will have enough space. We'll go there as soon as the plane lands. Cisco already made sure we have some equipment and all the things we might need." Caitlin replied to the man of steel's question.

"Until those guys come around, mind if I use your speed lab for a bit? I never managed to see what happened to me after the lightning hit me and Kara. I don't even know what my top speed is now" Older Barry asked the couple.

"Sure, that's not a problem. I'll come with you and me and Cisco can monitor your output while you run. If Caitlin doesn't mind staying here to keep our guests company that is" Young Barry smiled toward his beautiful wife.

 **"No I don't mind. Just make it fast, Felicity did say she would be here momentarily"** She answered and the two speedsters went down to the lab. Older Barry got into the circular track and started running. His speed was nothing special, Barry and Caitlin could cruise now at Mach 100+ after their encounter with the speed force back when they were married. This time, Older Barry decided to push it and while he did that, the sensors in the speed lab started to register huge speeds. At one point he was running at over 1500 Mach and the way that his running form turned into almost of a shadow was something formidable. He came back panting a bit to look at the results.

"I was pushing it as fast as I could go. I don't think I can keep that speed for long, but it felt like I was flying at some point" older Barry told his double.

"Max speed registered was 1523 Mach. Which is a lot. You're almost 3 times faster than Caitlin and I. Here" Young him pointed to a graph where the max speed was shown. The last few values "This is our top speed with the tachyon accelerators off. Its 635 Mach. If we add those then the speed rises at about 800 Mach. I knew you were fast before but it seems the new infusion of power that you got from Kara's cells must have pushed your cells to be more in tune with the speed force. While this is something you can do now, I suspect with more training, you will become even faster" young Barry told him quite impressed. He lost the being envious part a while back when he realized that if older Barry had that potential, then more than likely he would too, so from envy it went to, the faster the old one went, the more excited he was because he knew that he will one day as well.

"It's quite a road from barely running Mach 1 when trying to beat a man of steel now was it" the old one chuckled

 **"So that happened in your timeline too, huh?"** the young one looked at him with a bit of an inquisitive face.

"Yes, except I was alone the first time I tried the supersonic punch. I did manage to put girder out, but in the process I broke my hand so badly that I had to take it easy for a few days. That was a pain in the ass, I couldn't control the speed force so well that the impacts wouldn't hurt me" the old one remembered with a bit of a crooked smile.

"We did try the supersonic punch here too, but he wasn't that phased by it. In the end Caitlin got annoyed and iced him for enough time so we could put him in a cell. Pretty convenient to have someone with that large array of powers helping you. Which in the end I still owe that to you coming back" the young one smiled brightly at his older self.

"I'm glad that I did. Seeing you two and how good your life is now, I don't even regret it anymore" The old one stated bluntly

"Yes, I'm sure that you meeting Kara again and the fact that you`re going to marry her has NOTHING to do with it" the young one threw a large smirk which turned into a knowing smile.

 **"No, of course not. Not at all"** the old one tried to defend himself but failing miserably.

"The plane just landed, get back up here, we need to go get the others" Caitlin spoke in his mind

 **"Let's go back. The others have arrived"** he told his older self and the two flashed back to the cortex. They all left STAR Labs and went to the airfield where the jet had landed. The two pilots were no strangers of seeing superheroes around but this time they were greeted by a whole slew of them which admittedly left them a bit overwhelmed. Oliver, Felicity, Speedy, Lyla and Diggle came out of the plane only to be caught in a torrent of lightning or just scooped up by Kara and Kal. The people were in the warehouse a bit later. Much to their surprise, before they entered the warehouse, a massive ship materialized in front and landed suddenly disappearing. Sara, Ray, Professor Stein, Jax and Steel came out of it. Vixen and Mick stayed behind to watch the ship, and Gideon was keeping an eye on what the talks were about so she could relay them to the ones that were inside.

"We brought a few more friends over, Lyla. Most of them will need to know what you have to say about these dominators so we know what can be done in case of an invasion" Caitlin spoke softly.

"I think it would be a good idea to bring Cisco, Bette, Winn and Alex as well. Those guys need to know too what's going on. Mind fetching them?" Kara smiled at her fiancée.

 **"No. Give me a minute"** Older Barry split into 4 and him and his remnants were gone. Younger Barry went to the Labs and picked up two power bars and made sure that Alex was safe in the Gideon room before returning. Three minutes later, the four people mentioned appeared into the warehouse in trails of blue lightning, the three remnants going back to the Speed force. Older Barry was panting, he had used enough energy, but his younger self gave him the two bars and he returned to normal after a little bit.

"Welcome everyone. Lyla here, for those who don't know her, works at ARGUS as their director. She has some information for us" young Barry explained to the group "Go ahead" he motioned toward the woman who went to the computer and put a flash drive in and authenticated it.

"The dominators were here before, on earth. Quite a few times from what we've been able to ascertain, based on the way they work. One time they actually tried to invade, but the strike force they brought was too small and was swiftly defeated by the US army in a battle that took a few days" She showed them a piece of footage from 1960. Something that was captured by a wounded private in the heat of that conflict "They were killed in that encounter, only one of them escaped and disappeared, we don't know where he went to, but we supposed that there might have been some sort of emergency teleportation device that took him back to his ship. Ever since that day, there were increasing reports of people disappearing. At first, nothing was strange, because people disappear in big cities all the time, but then the way they presented themselves started to bring other cases into light that we had not considered before"

"What do you mean the way they did things? They have a specific MO when it comes to kidnapping the victims they want to perform tests on?" Alex asked wanting to know if what happened with Maggie was relevant or not.

"Yes. Indeed. The persons we have deemed as abductees all disappeared on trips with their loved ones. The aliens don't kidnap people, they make them come with them willingly, by using the person that they care about or love as an infiltrator. Several of these cases were caught by us in a sting we had in Star City a while back where we found a secret facility near the city that housed some sort of pods, which contained real people. Those people were the persons that were used as infiltrators. After we managed to get them out with a little bit of help, they told us that most of them don't even remember the last few months. It was like they were in a dream state" Lyla explained and Alex seemed to get angrier and angrier with the whole thing

"That is what happened to a detective in National. We still have her pod, if you can get her out of there we would be grateful" Winn interjected.

"I'm going to send the Allens the procedure to get the people out of the pods. They can distribute it around since at the moment STAR Labs has more reach that ARGUS and the information travels faster due to a certain pair of speedsters" Lyla gave Barry and Caitlin a smirk.

"We'll make sure it reaches you, Winn so you can get Detective Sawyer out of that pod" Caitlin assured him.

"What I have remembered from the time that I was on Krypton was the fact that these aliens are scientists and they almost always don't work alone. We still don't know if the doubles of the people that were being held in those pods are only clones or they are another alien species that can morph." Kara added to the conversation

"Do we know anything about these people's battle tactics or what they might bring to the table in the event of a possible invasion?" Oliver asked a very interesting questions, none of them knew their enemy that well and that could have proved to be a major tactical disadvantage for their group.

"No. They could be here with a fleet or ships, or use some intradimensional teleportation device to beam over straight from their home planet. We are unsure of that at this time and there isn't a way to find out" Lyla commented.

"I'll take the Wave Rider and fly into space. Our sensors work well at scanning space as well as time. If there is anything out there that might hold an invasion force we will find it" Sara spoke form the back and ray nodded.

"If they are indeed using a teleportation device, the power requirement would be off the charts. Isn't there a way we could detect such large spikes in the power usage around the world?" Professor Stein voiced his thoughts.

"Not as of yet, Martin, but we did come up with the breach detection system, if you`re willing to work with me then maybe we can make some sort of detection device for that as well, then put it onto one of the STAR Satellites and launch it into space. Even better if we can just make a piece of software that can use the current satellites" Cisco told him and the professor smiled. He enjoyed working with the young engineer and was looking forward to what they had to do together.

"Superman, Supergirl, J`onn, are you familiar with any sort of teleportation technology?" Young Barry asked quite bluntly.

"No, Kryptonians have dabbled with that in the past, but the research wasn't finalized. We can provide you with some equations and how things would work in theory to aid in scanning for a particular energy source, but we don't know that is the technology these particular aliens use. Which means it can be all for nothing" Superman explained.

"Martians haven't found anything of the sort either. Which means for now, the Kryptonian research is all we have and the energy monitoring in general" J'onn answered swiftly.

"I don't know what the deal with the government is. What ARGUS has found out until now were from our own sources and with our own methods. They could be cooperating with these guys, or they might not be even aware that someone is trying to infiltrate their ranks" Lyla said quite bluntly.

"We thoughts about that ourselves. As it stands now we have no guarantee that we won't get shut down rather fast if the higher ups are indeed collaborators, so try to keep this on the low end. You too Lyla, if it comes to an invasion then I guess only then we will see who stands on what side" Caitlin spoke her mind

"When we rescued Alex from where she was being held there were a lot of human troops, US soldiers that tried to get in our way. I scanned as many of them as I could and I couldn't come up with anything more than just humans. No abnormal physiology, no weird readings, everything seemed to be perfectly in order, however that doesn't mean anything. There could be a shapeshifter that mimics the human form via DNA, in which case my x ray vision would be useless" Kara explained what happened back when she got her sister out.

"I see. That could prove a problem if there is no way to see which ones are human and which ones are shifted. I guess we will have to capture one of the doubles and see what we can find out about it. We only have Maggie and she's more than likely the original" Caitlin spoke her thoughts

"Lyla, are the persons that have been kidnapped and you saved from the pods still around? Or maybe you can send us their data. We can see if there is some kind of correlation between them and maybe adjust our profile to other people that might have been kidnapped. Barry and Kara are detectives at the NCPD, so we can get the missing people data from them. The captain of the CCPD is a friend, so we can do the same, we can cross reference the data you have with the missing people cases here over the last year and see what we can come up with" young Barry decided to run with an idea.

"I can ask Dan Turpin if he can get me the missing persons from Metropolis as well. He is always the man that I ask for help whenever the police are involved" Superman pitched in.

"We can collate all the data in the STAR Labs computers and see if we can come up with something. WE will need something pretty advanced to sift through all that in a timely manner, but I think I can come up with something" Felicity smiled.

 **"We can help as well"** Cisco added and the two Allens nodded.

 **"That's about all I have"** Lyla came off as trying to apologize for bringing everyone here, but Superman cut her off instantly.

"It's way more than we had at the beginning. Now we know what to watch out for and what to search for. Even if these guys don't intend to invade right away, keeping track of their exploits on earth might be a pretty good idea."

"I agree. Cisco, I think it's time we started to build this place up. We will need to keep an eye on the operations that the aliens are running on the earth and everyone should be able to come here and check for themselves. Too many people are from too many agencies that we would be able to give them access to STAR Labs, but this location seems adequate for a secondary base that could process all that information" Barry spoke to his friend.

"Already on it. We've started to make plans for the complete retrofit of this warehouse. Since money isn't an issue this should be completed inside a month. After that whoever has access can come here and use the facilities" the engineer responded.

"I think it's time that we headed home then" Speedy offered and Sara agreed.

"We will keep regular patrols in the space above the earth and send information through Gideon to the Labs. If we find anything unusual you will be the first to know" Ray spoke from the back and Professor Stein agreed.

"Good, the others will get information from their respected sources and get them back to STAR. After that we can only hope we catch a duplicate in due time so can find out what these people are actually planning" Caitlin spoke

"I'm going to try and get Quentin Lance to help us with the data from Star City as well" Oliver voiced "Although I can just ask for a status report from the police now that I'm the mayor, I would rather do it through unofficial channels to make sure the data is accurate, not just lies presented so that the police department looks good"

With everyone agreed what they wanted to do, the speedsters took them home, Diggle and Lyla preferred to take the jet back, seeing that most of their trips with the speedsters ended up in puking fests. Older Barry, Kara and Kal decided to remain behind and see if they could come up with anything more. The five went back to the penthouse. The two speedsters brought food and Caitlin brought out Alex who wanted some food as well. Kara wanted to feed the child so Caitlin let her. There was no discussion about the alien being really careful with the child and since her Barry had taught her the restraint she needed to handle him, after that it was all playtime from there.

 **"Back when you said these two had a penthouse I thought that you were kidding, Kara. Not so much now"** Kal smiled and changed into normal clothes. Kara and her Barry did the same. The Allens had changed almost immediately as they came into the house. Their costumes were not needed here.

"Imagine my surprise when they called me the first time to the house warming party. I thought they were kidding, because since I've met them those two never struck me as the rich annoying types. More like the people that didn't really care about money" She told her cousin

"We thought we could splurge on a penthouse once in a lifetime. It's not like we don't need the space or anything. When that little guy will grow up he will need all this place to get used to his powers" Caitlin chuckled while she was chowing down on some donuts.

"Do you really think these aliens might actually reconsider invading this planet? I found that surprising considering that they got beaten off the last time and they still came back?" Young Barry posed a very interesting question.

"More than likely not. If they came back here a second time, then there is something here that they want. More than likely on the planet or just something with its inhabitants. We don't know what yet. Not until we manage to compile everything that we will get from the other places" Kara voiced her thoughts.

"Hey, bro, did anything like this happen back when you came from?" Barry asked his older double.

"Nothing of the sort. We did have some other major events which, for safety's sake I will not disclose, until we get to them if we ever will. But nothing related to an alien invasion. However something strange did happen. It did involve Alex as well, I already told Kara, back in my time her sister was a real ball buster. I don't know what went on with her, but after she started dating Sara, she changed for like a week, she was all blood and roses all sweet and caring. That was strange as all hell back then. I doubt it was something related to the Dominators, Sara couldn't have been turned into a double. Besides the number of missing persons, at least in Central City was pretty low. Maybe 5 or 6. Most of the missing persons that were reported during and after the Particle Accelerator explosion were found, some were dead, some have received powers and started to help me and Kara covertly and the others, well … since they were nuts most of them were either put in the pipeline or in iron heights" Older Barry explained what had happened

"That's not really an indication. But who knows what happened back then. We should turn in, it's rather late and Kal has to fly all the way back to Metropolis tomorrow. Unless someone wants to take him there" Kara smiled and she knew almost instantly that all three would offer that, except the man of steel cut her off

"It's fine, I already took the day off, I wanted to go flying anyway. It's been a while since I just took a break for myself. Besides, Lois took the day off too" He smirked.

 **"I'll make a remnant and take him. More time to spend with your girlfriend is no joke"** Older Barry commented and they all started to laugh. They remembered those times including the two that were married where they would look for time to spend by themselves away from the superhero business. Time, which they enjoyed immensely as long as there wasn't any emergency to be take care of.

"Thank for that Barry. It's surprising you know? Me and Lois have been longer together than you and Kara and you two have already decided to marry and we're just … well you know" Kal took a sip of tea

"Clark, you know for a fact how badly Kara had it in for my husband. Considering that the older version was in love with Kara for more than three years, if you put all that time together you'll see that they have been with one another, at least in the way they have loved each other for quite longer. We even tried to make her move on, yeah, like that would have worked" Caitlin grinned looking at the two that were smiling.

"Yeah, tried to make me move on and then a month later sent me a duplicate of the man I had a crush on. Good work on that you two, stellar thinking, that would have totally made me move on. Nevertheless, if I am to be open about it, it did make me move on. From your husband to mine. So that worked, even though not initially as designed. Since both Barry's are different persons, at least because of their experiences" Kara started to laugh and young Barry and Caitlin joined

"Hey, don't be stingy, at least we thought to send him to you and not put him somewhere else or even keep him with us in this dimension for help" younger Barry said between the bouts of laughter.

"To be fair, Clark. Neither of you actually thought about marriage, I do think your relationship is open enough so you can talk about this stuff without other side effects. I mean yea, you did tell her you`re Superman and she left you for some time to deal with stuff on her own, but that is the biggest secret you had. I'm betting everyone would require time to deal with the fact that their significant other is a super powered alien from another planet" Caitlin voiced and then saw Barry and Kara chuckling "Except maybe that guy over there, he knew for a fact what he was getting into. The first time and the second time around with Kara"

"The fractures I have are a living testament that I knew what I was going into. Maybe not loved every minute of it, because as both you speedsters might know, getting your bones cracked is not pleasant. But that didn't really stop me" older Barry cracked and Kara hit him over the arm with her fist. Superman was surprised that she didn't break his arm. The speedster picked up on that.

"Don't worry, she won't hurt me now. After the hand to hand combat training we did, she has learned to control her power subconsciously and put just enough strength to not rip anyone's head off" He explained.

"Come on. It's time for us to go get some rest. We shall see tomorrow what kind of news the other bring and what can we do with it. I think it's time through that we started working on a more powerful computer system to manage the labs and all the data that comes with it. Maybe even turn it into an AI. Who knows. Since we already discussed with the others Gideon that we are indeed his creators maybe it's time we go that direction. Our own Gideon would be very beneficial in managing the labs and all the annexes that came with them via the worlds merging" Caitlin voiced her thoughts.

"We would have to start studying IT stuff again more than likely. We can build it from a model of the human brain and use the new chips that Mercury managed to make. With the new advances in quantum computing that could be done. We just need to decide to put our heads together and actually do it" Young Barry smiled. The people got off the couch and chairs and strolled over to the room they had decided to stay in. To nobody's surprise Barry and Kara took one of the large guest rooms while Kal, took one of the smaller room on the other side of the house. His reason was _"he didn't want to hear strange sounds at night"_ to which all the others started to laugh because he could probably hear all the sounds he wanted in the whole city with his super hearing, but that was something that was left unsaid between the laughs. The older speedster and the blonde alien decided in their heads to be good and not provoke nightmares to her cousin by starting something in the middle of the night.


	65. Infiltrators

After the day of the summit, the computers at STAR Labs were running full force interpreting the data they kept gathering from the traffic cameras and other sources of information that they could get. Felicity managed to tap into most of the metropolis security footage and with the help of Barry and Kara they had received access to the National City footage as well. In Star city however Quentin Lance had a bit of a problem in obtaining authorization to release that data so again, Felicity hat to use the system she used in keeping track for trouble when it came to the Arrow. The integration of that system was seamless ever since Cisco decided to take a trip down there and with the help of Felicity and Bette refurbish the entire Arrow cave and part of the large STAR West infrastructure, so it wouldn't blow out. That had a long time coming, Cisco had seen how bad it was back when they went after Vandal Savage.

With that in tow, the blonde moved town for a bit and came to Central City. The protocols she was working on were new and quite revolutionary, but they required a lot of computing power, something that was not available on the market. In the STAR Labs files she had seen plans for a prototype quantum bio computer chip that was built on tech and bioengineering. Something that would be able to run the large amount of code that she wrote with the occasional help of Barry and Caitlin. The two were by no means at her level, but their ideas were solid, so they integrated them in the core of the computer program.

The two speedsters already knew what they were building. The new algorithms, with the quantum biochips and the large storage data network. Those were all too familiar to them, they knew right away that this idea would lead to the creation of Gideon. The two bioengineers and Cisco had been working on improving the chips designs for months now. The XZ 25 chips that were used in the drones were indeed advanced, but these would be the next level in computing. Small chips that would use biomaterial along with technology that had the power of 100 of the previous chips. The way that biomaterial and the tech worked along one another was something that the people who managed to produce it were totally proud of. Of course, the chip was already patented to STAR Labs and only their subsidiaries along with Mercury had the access to the designs. The engineer came into the cortex, the two had ordered two prototypes of the biochips to be done and now they were testing them in the Lab systems.

"How does it look, Cisco. Everything well with the chips? Do they perform according to your expectations?" Caitlin asked the engineer who had a large grin on his face

"No, they perform way beyond my expectations. I think we might need to create new types of connections for it. Somehow I think they could perform even better if we had some sort of bio neural interface to handle the bandwidth that this baby requires. Of course that will have to be through up and built by us. You know me, I love a challenge"

"We know. We`re the same. Let's see how well the chips perform with Felicity's code on them and after that we should think about how we can upgrade the whole platform with bio circuitry" Caitlin replied. In order to understand what they were doing the couple had to read quite a lot related to engineering, Cisco was surprised how frighteningly fast they got some things. Of course a few weeks of reading didn't get them to his level, but they were pretty good and the engineer was proud of them. The same thing happened with programming, back when the chips for Felicity's back needed configuration. Barry and Caitlin started to read more and more and assimilated the knowledge with frightening speed and accuracy, because of their technical nature.

Felicity was listening to the conversation. For a while she had been a part of the Cortex crew, ever since she came to work here. The computers at STAR West were not fast enough to actually keep up with what she was writing. She helped team Arrow as usual since she had eyes and ears all over town, but Oliver understood the need for her to work somewhere else. Besides, not like he couldn't come over whenever he wanted, the STAR West jet was always ready if he wanted to do so, but his mayoral duties and his Arrow shenanigans were taking over his time.

"The routines you two added didn't make sense to me until now. They are AI routines aren't they?" Felicity realized after reading the code that was in the modules the two speedsters wrote.

"Yes. While the search and collation algorithms that you`re writing, including the untraceable VPN protocol and the encryption are the staples of that system, there was needed something that could control them at will. AI seemed like the best option" Barry confirmed her suspicions.

"So in reality what we`re doing here is building the first version of Gideon, aren't we?" Felicity's eyes started to glint

"Pretty much. I thought it would be cool to have our own, every time the time cops leave I get a bit annoyed that we have to do everything by ourselves, now, we won't have to" Barry replied to her and Caitlin started to laugh.

"Of course, since someone is such a lazy ass, because it's really hard to press a few buttons and get the results you wanted. You know that we already have all the subroutines mostly on automatic and they already alert us when they need to. You just want someone to talk to when I'm not around" She said between bouts of laughter.

"You`re always around and I can talk to you, in my head even if you`re on the other side of the continent. I think that's a moot point, don't you?" Barry got close to his wife and gave her a kiss.

 **"Well, it is a moot point, but I had to make a little fun of you, didn't I?"** She replied while holding him closer to her. Alex had woken up and was demanding food so the two speedsters went to feed their son, leaving Cisco and Felicity alone in the cortex.

"So you think that chip will have enough power to run what I'm writing without much issue?" She asked the man that was looking over some statistics

"Oh yes. More than likely and even leave some computing power for backups and other things. The chips are amazing, these two managed to make the transition between my tech and their bio material seamless. The amount of information processed is enormous and the thermal output is minimal. Even at large instructions and programs, the chips barely spike 2-3 degrees in temperature" the engineer replied to her while looking at the data that he had gathered over the last week while the chips were in testing.

"We would probably still need some emergency cooling system anyway. 2-3 degrees might not be that much for you, when it comes to tech, but the biomaterial can get burnt out if the temperature spikes 10 or 15 degrees. Cisco, I think you can come up with something that will make sure that doesn't happen. We don't really want the chips fizzling out on us in case of an emergency or if they have too much raw data to process" Caitlin came back to the cortex while Barry decided to take the little one for a walk outside the complex. She came back to get something and then left.

"Look at those two, ever since they had a child I don't think I have seen anything but happiness on their faces. Even if something comes up that little guy always makes them smile" The engineer said with a bit of sadness in his voice.

 **"They still haven't found a way to help Bette with her problem have they?"** Felicity knew what was going on and why everything related to children seemed to bring a dark shadow on the engineers face.

"They are still trying. I know because I can see what they work on. While there will always are projects that have priority in the Labs, I have always caught them working on a way to help Bette with her problem in their off time. Which is something I am always grateful for. Nothing until now, sadly, but as long as those two keep at it, I know they will be able to come up with something, eventually" He gave the blonde a smile and restarted running the tests on the chips taking a seat in the empty chair that was near her.

Meanwhile the two speedsters were walking around the marina with a stroller and their son. They started taking him out a while back, but usually when they were very busy, the multitude of aunts and uncles would go out with him. Everyone from Iris to Henry and Tina were happy to take the little tyke out for a little fresh air. This time however, the couple had enough time to do that themselves.

"Back when the Gideon that Eobard brought through told us that we would be its creators, we didn't believe him. It would be something out of both our areas of expertise. Now look at us, we read enough to actually help Felicity with the code and we know enough bioengineering to help Cisco to create quantum bio computer chips. Who would have thought that" Barry smiled at his wife while they both walked

"Not me. I'm still surprised that I have a family. Well not that surprised, but you know what I mean. Back when I thought that my career was over, I was really depressed. Now I don't actually have a career, but the work we do has helped a lot of people and if we manage to get Gideon online, she will help a lot of people as well" Caitlin looked at her husband who was chuckling.

"You don`t have to tell me twice. I'm happy to be where we are. Even if took another me to get us there. That guy risked everything to give you and me what we have now" The speedster looked at his wife who nodded.

"I'm glad that it didn't happen the same it did in his timeline. I know Killer Frost was a murderer, but I can't imagine that even if she took over I would be able to hurt you like she did him. Maybe I'm underestimating the power of my own repressed emotions" she replied making sure that Alex was all right

"Well, we don't need to worry about that anymore. I'm just glad to be with my family on a regular stroll on a regular day, with no aliens, metahumans or weirdo mages that make it rain blood for a change" Barry replied and kissed his wife on the cheek. Something however did not feel right to him, Caitlin felt that too. They both looked around to notice the face of a person that was walking on the opposite side of the road with her face toward them

"Hey, isn't that the person that was in the pod? What was her name? Maggie … something?" Barry nodded toward the person to make Caitlin look her over.

"It might be, I don't know. She looks indeed similar, but without a face ID Match we don't know if that is her or not. The marina doesn't hold enough cameras to ask Felicity to run a face check" Caitlin replied but decided to send a text to the cortex anyway. _"Check our location and pull up camera footage from here. I think we just saw Maggie Sawyer"_ The answer came immediately

"Will do, but as far as we know, Maggie is still back in the pod in National City. So how could she be here?" Cisco asked surprised.

"Don't know. Talk to Winn, see what's up with her. We will try to follow the person as best we can. As you know a baby stroller doesn't offer many stealth options" Caitlin replied and the two started to follow the person. It was indeed not a good idea to do that with a baby carriage, because after a few blocks they lost her in a crowd. The two came back to the cortex pretty surprised.

"Winn confirmed that Maggie is out. The ARGUS solution worked on her. However, she is in no way in Central City. She is back in National working at the NCPD. Kara went and checked for us, since she and her Barry work there" Cisco told the two speedsters

"Which means this person, whoever she is, is a fake. Or more accurately said, is the fake that tried to kidnap Alex when she was gone. I don't understand the thinking, if they were indeed connected and the person that is now shifted into Maggie had lost the link, then what would be the logic in keeping the same face when the original is still out there" Barry rubbed the back of his head while he thought out loud.

"Maybe since the double is in another city they thought the likelihood of someone noticing was small to none. We would have probably not noticed it ourselves if we weren't actively looking for her. The computer has managed to pinpoint the person you were following. The facial recognition software indeed identifies her as Maggie Sawyer." Felicity replied while going over what she had pulled from the NCPD.

"We already notified Barry, Kara, J`onn and Alex about the duplicate being in Central City. Now all we have to do is find her and capture her. Which will not prove easy, if she is indeed a shapeshifter, ugh, remember Bates?" Barry made a grimace

"Yea, he could be anyone, anywhere and we wouldn't know much. That is indeed a problem, also nothing we can solve. We'll just have to keep an eye out for her and hope that the system Felicity is building will aid us in keeping track of her other faces" Caitlin replied and started to work on a way to make the cooling system that the chips required integrate better with the actual platform. Barry went to help her while Alex was taking his usual nap in the Gideon room.

Cisco had picked that room for the install of the chips and of the matrix that would hold the AI. He saw it fitting that the room that held the Gideon from the future would be the one to be the place where the first one was installed. He went back to work himself into building a projection system that would give the AI the capability of appearing anywhere in the lab on demand.

After the work she put into everything, Felicity finally managed to finish the code that would be the core of what they called Gideon. Of course, they knew it probably wouldn't be as the Future Gideon they knew from the wave rider, but as any person knew, everything could be improved with time.

The first time they introduced the code into the computer that held the chips, they started to get hot. The temperature rose by about 10 degrees the moment the system was booting up. That stopped them in their tracks. Barry and Caitlin starting to work at super speed to come up with a solution for the cooling. Which they did, the temperature of the containment vessels that held the chips was the problem, it went up rather fast so they decided to scrap that and make a smaller housing out of thermo-conductive materials which would take out the heat instead of holding it in. The cooling system they designed would be a secondary containment unit in which a cooling agent would be passed through that held the inner housing at an average of 1 degree. The system was by no chance perfected, but when they tried the second time, it proved very useful, the chips only climbing one degree compared to the 10 before.

Felicity had a good idea how long the system would take to boot, but she was pleasantly surprised that the performance of the chips they were testing was far above anything she expected. The core code of the system was up and running in less than 5 minutes. Already taking over the basic function for the face search and person search that indexed the rest of the databases she had hacked into.

The Ai already recognized its root users and the basic functions that were available to it. Felicity immediately started working on an interactivity program that would tie into the base system and let the AI manifest itself via the holographic projectors that Cisco was building.

"This is the worst part in my opinion. How do you make an Ai truly interactive? Sure it has to answer to your questions and recognize what you ask it, but that is a tremendous volume of work" Felicity whined a bit realizing that this was past her abilities to make it in a short time. It would take a long while until their Gideon was as interactive as the future one.

"Put the basics in, Felicity. She already has a learning program that will let her start writing interactivity code herself. It's one of the features we put in the core programming to help you, so you don't have to spend 5 years trying to get her responses right" Barry replied while helping Caitlin with the search for Maggie.

"Yeah, I've seen that. But for that to work someone would actually start to have discussions with Gideon. I mean real discussions, not do this, do that, search for this or scan that. It's almost like …" she got cut off by Caitlin

"Trying to teach a child how to speak. Yes, we are aware of that. That's why we built the learning program like we did. Don't worry, Felicity, Gideon has access to all the library that STAR Labs has. She will more than likely prove a quite apt conversationalist in the future. An objective one of course, because even as an AI, opinions are based on preference and to be honest I don't know that an AI can have preferences. But this is new ground for us as well. I guess we shall see"

"Ah I understand now. So you designed the learning program that way. It is indeed a good analogy if you sit and think about the human condition. We know nothing when we are born and we learn as time progresses" Cisco commented from the other side of the room

"And it wouldn't be Cisco if he didn't put some sort of reference in there. Thank you master of Netflix, we bow down to your knowledge" Barry chuckled making Cisco laugh.

"I just realized something. Cisco, did you put in our masks something similar to Kara's x ray vision too? I do remember that one time with the dimension jumper you added heat sensors so we could track her" Caitlin spoke looking at the engineer quizzically

"I did yes. It doesn't work like hers because, that's not how x rays work with our current tech, but yes. Your masks both have that sort of thing. What are you thinking?" He asked

"Let's see if the system pick up Maggie again and we can go scan her. See if she has all the traits of a normal human. You know, bone structure and the likes. If the change is just exterior, the X ray scanners should provide us with information and something that we could use later on that sort of person." She replied nonchalantly.

"That is a good idea. That gives us a way to detect her, still doesn't give us any idea as to where she might be. Last time when we say her it didn't take long for her to disappear in a crowd of people. This time won't be any different if we can't keep an eye on her without sparking any sort of suspicion" Barry spoke his thoughts.

"You can always capture her immediately and put her in one of the pipeline cells to be dealt with later. That seems the obvious course of action. Just don't let her get away again so we can see if she's an actual human or something else" Felicity added while tinkering away at the center console.

The computer was working at full speed trying to keep up with the real time data that was coming from the security cameras in the city and sorting through all the missing person reports that the others have sent trying to find a correlations between them. All in all it was something that no regular human could do and Cisco already thought about introducing a few more chips to expand the processing power of the system.

It took a few hours but the fake Maggie was seen again. This time Barry and Caitlin took no chances, Flash and Frost were on the scene instantly searching for the duplicate. In their extended time scape they managed to catch the tail end of what they could only categorize as a morphing cycle in which the **"Maggie"** person became someone else in the crowd. Their scanners told them nothing, when they looked at the person that she had become she was completely normal, the shapeshifting abilities had recreated everything from muscles down to the bone. However they did not let themselves be fooled and took the person that the shapeshifter had turned into and put her in a cell in the pipeline which was reinforced. The cell was constantly scanning the person for signs of strange physiology. In the rush, the Flash had managed to take a skin sample off the shapeshifter.

"Cait, even if we saw it with our own eyes shapeshifting, the cells that I got don't turn up anything except human. We've hit a snag with that one" Barry said with an annoyed voice looking at his wife.

"And she's not even Maggie anymore, which is a bit odd, the person that it transformed into was someone from the crowd. What we thought until now that they need the psychic connection to be able to become that person was obviously wrong. We need to talk to Kara. Maybe she has an idea of what can help us see what this creature really is" The answer came. Barry agreed and called in Kara

"Kara, we found the Maggie Double. She was walking around Central City waiting for something. We have her in the pipeline, but she shifted into someone else. We ran an analysis on some of the cells we got off her, but they don't come off anything else except human. Do you have any idea how can we find out what kind of species that is?" Barry asked the alien blonde.

"So it's indeed a mimic. Well then, if you can't do anything with the body maybe J`onn can do something with its mind. We're on our way" She replied and closed the line. The two speedsters waited patiently older Barry spared no time in bringing Supergirl and J'onn as fast as he could back to Central City. This wasn't the time for a leisurely flight. The five went straight to the pipeline where the Martian started to access the stranger's mind. The connection was not done by will and the force of the mental attack that the Martian was putting on the creature made it that it would start morphing uncontrollably until after a while all that was left of it was a formless mass of green tentacles that was wearing a robe and a hood.

"Enough with the attacks" the mass shouted "What do you want from me?"

"An answer to a simple question. Or two in this case. Who are you and why are here?" Kara sked quite nonchalantly the mass of green tentacles.

"I am Si`nha and what I am doing here is none of your business" The formless mass spoke

"It is our business, Durlan" J'onn spoke "He is from a race of shapeshifters called the Durlans. They are known in the galaxy for their xenophobia and the fact that they have forgotten their original form after a nuclear war on their planet. I have met some of them before when I was on Mars. Travelers from far away coming to seek fortune or information about something they had lost long ago"

"I see you have heard of us. Yes, I am a Durlan. As for what I am doing here, that is something I cannot impart" the mass replied.

"They are probably allied with the dominators. They came here to earth to seek something and to help them conquer it. Why else would this one pose as Maggie Sawyer and try to kidnap Alex. Nothing else really makes sense except that" Kara replied.

 **"Speak, Durlan, or else I will drag that information out of you by force"** J`onn threatened the captor who stood there telling them nothing. It was very clear that whoever he was answering too was more of a threat to his life than the Martian was. That didn't stop him, he told everyone to go back to the Cortex and wait for him. Nobody wanted to see what would happen but he came back after about 30 minutes.

"The Durlans are indeed allied with the dominators. This was a low level soldier and he didn't know much. What I have been able to ascertain is that the Dominators seem threatened by the fact that there is metahuman life on earth. People with powers that would make conquering this world very problematic. They have been here for a while, like Lyla told us, maybe they wanted to turn this planet into a colony long ago" The Martian explained what he had learned.

"So the reason that they came back now and restarted with the kidnappings is that the Particle accelerator explosion botched up their plans? Well they can thank Eobard for that. What do they have against all the metahumans?" Barry spoke with a lot of annoyance in his voice and his older self agreed wholeheartedly.

"The small issue of the super powered humans that appeared, coupled with the fact that the two universes merged forced them to reconsider their battle plans. With a Martian and two Kryptonians here, which are way more powerful than they anticipated, along with a slew of super powered metahumans, good or bad, because even the mad ones will fight for their own planet even if they are crazy, could seriously put a dent in their invasion plans. That is why they are kidnapping people. Some of them as you will see are bound to have latent powers that have not awakened. They want to experiment on them to make something that would neutralize their powers so they can take over the planet" the Martian continued to explain what he had seen in the mind of the Durlan

"The problem is we don't know which of the ones that were abducted have the metagene active in their system. Even if they have latent powers, the kidnappings look random. As we've found out the energy from the particle accelerator explosion wasn't limited to Central City. There were pools of x particles that drifted away from the city. Tracking them down will me next to impossible" Caitlin realized the extent of the search they might need to run and it was nothing to be happy about.

"That might be the case, but now we know what the Dominators plan and who are their allies here. Did you manage to get anything else out of him?" older Barry asked

"It seems that he was part of a sect of Durlan purists. Before their cataclysm they sent a ship with a backup of their original genetic code to earth. That is why the Durlans that I met so long ago were on Mars. I suspect they knew the system where they sent the ship and they were looking on all the inhabited planets. From this one I found out that it is here, on earth. It landed somewhere in the 1908 in the Tunguska region of Siberia. The Russians seem to have taken everything from that area and put into storage. These Durlans have tried to find it ever since" J`onn explained the alternate reason of the Durlans on earth.

"I wonder if we help them recover what they lost maybe they can just go away. Being shapeshifters is a real pain in the ass" young Barry voiced

"They might, but I haven't been able to determine the full reasoning between the alliance they have with the Dominators. They might just want earth gone or they might just want their genetic information and then they can go home" the answer came.

 **"Just one more thing on the list of "things we have to find out"** . Sure we are closer by actually finding out the Durlans are helping the Dominators, but their appearance sparks a whole lot of other questions. Why can't something be easy for a change?" Cisco said with an annoyed voice

"Yes, because this is one of your shows. This is an invasion, of course they will try to keep the details secret" Felicity started to laugh at the engineer "You, my dear Cisco, have seen way too many filler episodes which use short term villains. These guys are here to stay and the more we find out about them, the better off we'll be"

"I'll tell Kal about what we found out. Caitlin, is there any way that we can detect these creatures when they're morphed now that we have a piece of their genetic structure when they aren't using any other form except their own?" Kara had noticed that the cell was recording everything

"Barry and I will get right on that. We have enough data, but from what I've seen, when they are morphed it's almost impossible to distinguish between a human and a Durlan. The transformation did give us some interesting readings, which will maybe enable us to create some sort of device that could detect them" Frost answered while checking over the data. Her husband was near her looking at it himself.

"All right. We're going back to National City. Let us know if you find anything and if there is something that we should keep our eyes out for" older Barry voiced "Blue Flash express or just normal way. You know I wouldn't mind some flying with you" he grinned looking at his fiancée.

 **"Let's fly then. Take care you guys. We'll be in touch"** Kara took Barry and flew out of STAR Labs followed by J`onn in his Martian form. The rest that were in the cortex returned to their business. Felicity was trying to optimize Gideon's subroutines, Cisco went back to his lab to finish the holographic projectors. He thought about it and for now they would only need a prototype for the cortex and nothing more. Most of them were already there and that was their meeting place anyway. The other scientists would probably freak out if they saw a ghostly figure appear out of nowhere.

He had already discussed this with Barry and Caitlin. They would probably tell the rest of the people that worked at the labs about Gideon, but sometimes later in the future. They had already patented the name and everything that came with the building of said AI, just to be sure than no one would try something like that. There was always public outcry about having a True AI that was being built, but the two Allens thought about that as well. In the core code that they introduced to make Gideon what she was, there was a kill command that would allow anyone of the five people that created her to completely shut her down and destroy the coding. They thought it would be a good idea to have it, in case she had a malfunction and decided to get all Skynet on the people of earth.

Felicity thought that was a good idea as well. Keeping some restriction on the Gideon Ai system was required even though they realized that with such lockdowns the AI would never behave like a real human, they still didn't want it going off with **"murder all humans"** as its credo. Maybe they had seen too many movies, but a safeguard was never something they would overlook.

Barry and Caitlin were in the Cortex going over the data and the genetic code of the Durlan that was now permanently housed in the Pipeline below. They discovered that the cells would give off a faint radioactive signal of unknown origin when they changed shape. While the element that gave off those precise signatures was not known yet on earth, the signal in itself was easily traceable. The two speedsters made a program that would track the signatures when and if they appeared and waited for the next upload window to push it to the STAR Labs satellites. The sensors started tracking the anomalies almost immediately and what they saw was bad.

At least 200 signals were just in the Central city area with more than 2000 all over the country. Those were people that were actively changing, the ones that still retained their form would not give off the radiation that the satellites were looking for. They left them on scan mode. They had to at least have an idea of how bad the whole Durlan situation was, and an estimate number of the shapeshifters that were on earth was valuable information. They both agreed however that this was larger than they had originally anticipated, something that began to worry them.


	66. Lantern

Barry and Caitlin got a call from the Development branch of the army one day without much discussion in advance. The two didn't really want to work with the military, they have had bad experiences with people that were in that branch. Besides, they wanted to change the world by providing technology for normal people, not something that was to be used in wars. The general wanted to talk to them about the military using their ultra-light nano materials to manufacture planes that would have the toughness of diamonds but be very maneuverable. The only way they could achieve that was if STAR Labs released the chemical makeup of the compounds and gave them the license to manufacture both the power cells that were required and the armor itself. The person requested a meet up at STAR, so they could discuss the terms of the contract they wanted to put together. The two Allens were in the cortex, along with Cisco, Bette and Tina.

 **"I don't know if I'm ok to give the Military the plans for our materials. I'm a bit on the bad side when it comes to anything related to government. That's why I thought everyone should get a say in"** Barry started while sitting on a chair. Caitlin knew already what that was about, the couple had discussed this at length after they received the call.

 **"I really don't know what to tell you, Barry"** Bette answered from the other side of the room **"I was military for a while as you know and the only bad seed that I encountered was General Eiling"**

 **"Besides general Eiling, me and Barry don't really have a problem with the military, rather with the command structure. Some people just follow orders, the ones that give the orders are the problem"** Caitlin explained in not so many words what their concern was

 **"I would agree with you two, except there is another thing we have to think about. The dominators. Sure, we don't give the tech now to the military, fine, but what happens if those aliens invade and out air force isn't strong enough, or durable enough to take on alien spacecraft?"** Cisco jumped into the conversation, being silent previously weighing his answer.

 **"Cisco makes a good point. I know that I don't really trust the military either after some questionable characters offered Mercury some weird contracts a while back. But if we get attacked from off world then we're pretty much screwed** " Tina explained what she was thinking.

 **"That is indeed a possibility. Do we have the money to make our own private air force?"** Barry asked nonchalantly

 **"I don't think so. The military has a stupidly large budget, one that is provided to it by the state. We don't even have a tenth of what they could muster in an emergency"** Caitlin replied to her husband.

 **"Could there be any sort of safeguard that we could put on our tech, so that the airplanes are never used outside of the country?"** Barry had an idea

 **"Of course, in the end the materials are still regulated by a computer. Depending on what kind of programming the nanites have, or better said, the programming which we give them, they can be disabled if the aircraft is not in a certain area, effectively turning them into normal planes without much modifications"** Cisco explained his thought about the whole thing.

 **"That would help, but what's not to say that the idiots in the development department of the military won't try to copy our designs and modify the programming themselves?"** Bette instantly replied

 **"Because if they do, they will get sued. I don't care if they are the protection of this country, copyright and licensing laws still apply to them, as well as patents"** Caitlin replied.

 **"Do you think they would go for that? I'm pretty sure these guys want the planes for war, not for protecting this country"** Tina made a good point

 **"If they don't go for that, then we won't give them anything. They can come up with their own ultra-light material that turns solid when it's hit. This is non-negotiable"** Barry was dead set into not giving the military more tools for war.

 **"Then we're in agreement. That is what we will propose to the guy that wants that tech"** Caitlin made sure that everyone was thinking the same thing. They all nodded confirming once again.

 ** _"Cait, I think it's your turn to play bad cop with our … friends"_** the speedster told his wife.

 ** _"Do you think that will be necessary?"_** She looked at him rather surprised.

 ** _"I know it will. The military does not give up lightly and they will not like the fact that we are trying to stonewall them. Can you do it?"_** Barry asked but with a large grin on his face

 ** _"No worries, I'll do it. You just keep the good cop appearance, but if you see that they get too stuck up about what they want, jump in to help"_** the answer came rather instantly. He agreed.

Everyone went back to work, while the couple was getting ready to receive their guests. Something that annoyed them was the timeframe. They received the call and without even being able to reply back with anything, they set a time they representative would show up at STAR Labs, not even asking if the couple had time that day or were even in town. The time that was set for the meeting was nearing so the couple sent Bette to collect the representative. Much to their surprise there wasn't just one, there were two of them which were promptly directed toward the large conference room that the lab had. When the people entered the room, Barry's face fell.

 ** _"What's wrong with you? You look like you`ve seen a ghost"_** Caitlin asked him mentally

 ** _"This isn't possible, unless the article I read a while back was false. Remember? The one about my friend?"_** He replied. Caitlin thought hard and remembered what he was talking about. Then looked at the second man that was accompanying the one who had a general's uniform and stars on his shoulders.

 ** _"Wait. That face, you`re right, wasn't Hal Jordan supposed to be dead?"_** She replied and saw him nod silently **_"I see. That's why you had that face. I think you and your friend need to have a little chat. He looks pretty good for a dead man"_**

 ** _"Good day. I'm General Drummond and this is Major Hal Jordan. We're the representatives that were sent to discuss the terms of endearment regarding the materials the Labs invented_** " the man spoke.

 **"Hello. I'm Barry Allen and this is my wife, Caitlin"** the speedster spoke. Hal Jordan looked strangely at him and then his face fell. It was obvious that he remembered quite well the name that was just brought up **"Tell me general, what do you actually want from STAR Labs?"**

 **"Straight to the point I see. We would like to acquire the license to fabricate the materials you have come up with here for a new generation of planes that we have in the works"** the man replied.

 **"General, I'll be blunt with you. When we reopened STAR after the particle accelerator incident, we were set on it being a force for good. Giving our designs to a branch of the government that, at this point in time, only seems to bolster external conflict does not abide by that credo. We are not a weapons manufacturing company, or anything related to that"** Caitlin cut in with a cold glare.

 **"So, you want to say that you will not accept in giving us the materials we need simply because you do not wish to encourage war?"** The man looked at Caitlin with a strange look.

 **"Precisely. However, that does not mean we will not give you the materials either. We love our country and we would like it protected by any means necessary from any kind of attack. That is why we have one condition, if we are ever going to share any of our findings"** Barry replied quite meekly. Hal was sitting there looking at the person he knew was Barry Allen, but not recognizing much about the personality.

 **"What would that condition be?"** The General inquired, he wanted to know what he was getting himself into

 **"Simple, you will have your materials, but they will be fabricated by STAR. You won't need the license at all. Of course, we will negotiate a fair price that will ensure we both get a good deal out of it. However, the planes that will receive that technology will not operate outside of this country"** Caitlin said with a nonchalance that simply astounded the General. It was obvious that he was used to getting what he wanted and not with condition tied to it.

 **"That is unacceptable. We need this technology specifically for air superiority when it comes to everyone else. Besides, how can you be able to determine where a plane that has your tech in it is?"** He responded with a snarky tone

 **"General, you forget, in order to control the nanofiber tubing, the planes will have to have a computer powerful enough to direct them. Also, the nanites have to have individual programming to react the way we want them to. It is extremely easy to code a turn off switch that will activate when the plane isn't in a desired area. In effect turning one of your special planes into a normal plane. Except it will be twice as expensive if it gets shot down"** Caitlin explained the predicament he was in quite nicely

 **"You would really turn off the armor in our planes if we take then out of the country for other operations?"** The man was surprised beyond belief that the two would even consider blocking him so badly that he would have to agree to something like that.

 **"Us? No. The armor would turn itself off. I think we were quite clear when we said that STAR is a company that wants to protect the world and do good. That includes our technology not being used for war. You want to make planes to protect this country for an attack, fine. We can give you the technology to make those aircraft almost indestructible as long as they have power. You want to make planes so you can start wars and be superior over the other militaries of the world, that is not our problem and we will not abide by that. It's your choice"** Barry decided to chime in so that his wife would not have to do everything alone.

 **"You will not reconsider that condition, will you?"** The general asked

 **"No, this lab has been the source of much pain and heartache when its previous owner decided to blow up the particle accelerator in an insane attempt to get super powers. Everyone in this city and beyond suffered. It will not happen again. Either take the offer we have given you, or you will get nothing from us. I do not want a media disaster smudging the Labs for offering technology to the military which was later on used to bomb kids in some unknown country somewhere"** her voice and demeanor were clear.

 **"What happens if we go at war with a common enemy then?"** The general brought up an interesting point.

 **"If you go at war, as in this country, then it's none of our problem. You go attack with the planes and gadgets you already have. I told you we would not condone that. If we get attacked, then you can use the planes that will be fabricated here. I doubt anyone would try that knowing that we possess planes that cannot be shot down by any known ballistic weapon at this time. That should be a pretty powerful deterrent"** Barry replied calmly

 **"Take your time and consider our offer. Also, do not think that you might be able to take the materials and reverse engineer them however you want. The nanites are proprietary, the coding is proprietary and everything that relates to that material is patented, if you even try to do anything, the nanites will alert us and provide us with proof of tampering and you will have on your hands the largest lawsuit that the military has ever seen"** Caitlin continued her husband's thoughts.

 **"You two really don't like conflict, do you?"** Hal asked from the side

 **"No, we don't. We recognize however the need to defend oneself and his country. As long as that is all it's about then the military will have our full support. Anything beyond that, they can do themselves without our technology"** the speedster uttered with conviction in his eyes. The General was baffled, he didn't even think that he would leave from the Labs without everything done the way he wanted it. You could see the frustration on his face.

 **"Very well, we will consider your offer. Major Jordan, we're leaving"** the man got up and started to walk toward the door.

 **"With permission, sir. I would like to remain a bit longer, to discuss an adjacent matter that has no connection to our main purpose of this trip"** Hal told the general

 **"Permission granted. I do however expect you tomorrow back in Coast City. There is an experimental plane that needs testing"** the reply came and the major nodded. Bette came back in and accompanied the General out of the building, leaving only Hal, Barry and Caitlin in the large conference room.

 **"Look at you, Barry Allen all grown up"** The man got off the chair and gave a large hug to the speedster **"Last time we talked you were still having problems in Biology class"**

 **"Yes, well. Stuff worked out all right. Last time I read anything about you … you were dead. That plane crash a while back?"** Barry smiled at his friend

 **"That was … almost true. I did almost die, but I recovered and the papers didn't know what happened because I disappeared for a while from the military life. I wanted to recover after what happened and I had some other things to do"** Hal smiled.

 **"Well, we got struck by lightning and we were in a coma, so I guess this is the almost dead people club"** Barry smirked at him

 **"What about you? I know we haven't spoken in a couple of years, but damn. From the apprentice CSI that I knew to owner of STAR Labs with a beautiful wife? A lot of things changed"** Hal retorted.

 **"Yes, a lot of things did change. I finally managed to find the love of my life, which was staring me right in the face. Cait, I believe I told you about Hal back when we saw that article, but since you were never properly introduced, I guess some of that is in order. Hal Jordan, this is my wife, Caitlin Allen. Cait, this is my longtime friend, Hal Jordan. The one that pulled a Jesus recently"** the speedster smiled. Caitlin extended a hand and the man shook it

 **"Glad to see that at least one of us had friends in college"** she quipped

 **"The pleasure is mine, Mrs. Allen"** Hal spoke while shaking her hand.

 **"Just call me Caitlin, any friend of Barry's is a friend of mine"** She replied turning toward her husband **"I need to leave for a bit, Alex has to be fed"**

 **"Go, we'll be here when you finish"** her husband replied and she went out the door closing it behind her.

 **"Alex? Who is that?"** Hal asked surprised.

 **"Ah. I should have mentioned something. Not only do I have a wife now, but I have a child as well. Alex is our son"** the speedster said calmly prompting Hal's jaw to drop

 **"So, you weren't kidding when you said that you met the love of your life. How long ago did you two meet?"** the question came

 **"About three years ago, back when the Particle accelerator exploded in Central City. We were working on a theft together and when that blew up, a lightning bolt from the storm that the erratic energy created hit us both. We both fell into comas. I woke up three months later, but she didn't. So… with the new found knowledge of bioengineering that I had, I decided to stay behind to try to wake her up. Everything after that is pretty much history"** the speedster spoke. Hal could see how proud he was of his wife and the way he talked about her was like meeting her was the best thing that happened to him.

 **"So, you crushed on her the moment you saw her"** the conclusion was obvious.

 **"Yeah, I did. Just like she did on me. We talked a lot after that, so it wasn't just me this time"** Barry smiled at him

 **"So, what about that other girl… what was her name? Iris?"** the test pilot was curious

 **"Nothing. She's married with her own family now"** the reply came

 **"OK, I see about you two meeting, but you as the owners of STAR Labs? How in the world did that happen?"** Hal smiled

 **"When Harrison Wells died, he left me the labs and everything adjacent to the. His own private companies and money. I became a billionaire overnight. When we got married, I handed over half of what I owned to her. So, we became the owners of the labs. That's about all there is to it"** The speedster gave him the short version.

 **"Did you ever … you know? Back when we talked after your father got imprisoned, the only reason you wanted to become a CSI was to prove that he was innocent"** The question came out of nowhere, Hal knew what had happened, maybe without the crazy talk of a man in the lightning and everything else and he never doubted Barry when he said that his father was innocent.

 **"I did. The man that killed my mother was none other than Harrison Wells. The owner of this Lab. I still do not know his reasons, I know he died and we found a confession video later that allowed me to free my father. Nevertheless, in him doing that he kind of robbed me of the chance to get my revenge. Or at least that's what I thought, but ever since I met Caitlin, revenge didn't even register on my things to do"** Barry explained in not so many words that his crusade was over.

 **"I'm glad about that. You were always obsessed by the man that killed your mother and although I never doubted you when you said your father was innocent, that obsession could have eaten you alive"** the man had talked enough with the speedster to know what that night had done to him. Surprisingly now, Barry Allen was not the same man he knew, he was happy and stern in what he believed in, showed by the fact that he would not give in to the demands of the general. Caitlin popped into the room.

 **"Barry, we have a small problem. You`re needed in the Cortex"** she said swiftly and then was gone.

 **"It seems like some things never change"** Barry got up and shook the hand of the man that got up himself **"We can continue this another time, now that I know you`re alive and well, nothing is stopping you to hitch a ride to Central and say hello"**

 **"Same goes for you. If you`re ever in Coast City, give me a call"** the two exchanged phone numbers and Hal left. Barry sped instantly to the Cortex where the alarms were on full swing.

 **"We have another metahuman attacking the City. Strangely enough, this one doesn't seem to want anything, or we haven't figured it out. His main power seems to be manipulation of magnetic fields"** Cisco told the two while showing them the footage from their cameras around town.

 **"Can you set the nanobots in our suits to emit a low-level magnetic field that will counter act his powers? If we go there unprepared, we might have some ugly surprises"** Caitlin spoke from the other side of the room.

 **"Yes, I've already modified them to emit a frequency that hopefully will act as a counter balancer for the magnetic forces. You`re good to go"** the engineer replied. The two got into their suits and sped to the scene.

The man didn't care about much except causing chaos. He was taking metal objects, smashing them into buildings. Cars and bikes were floating around, some of them actually having people inside

 ** _"Great, we have innocent bystanders. We have to get them to safety first"_** Caitlin spoke to him mentally.

 ** _"That will be your job, I cannot fly, if I don't have something to run on, I can't reach that high. You know how that works. I'll try to see if I can do something from the ground, if not I can still recharge you to help those people"_** the answer came and she agreed. Instantly her body started to turn into ice, her armor manifesting and the usual wings growing from her back.

Frost started to help the people that were stranded in the floating cars, but that proved itself to be a rather challenging task, since the metahuman kept throwing stuff at her to prevent her from what she was doing. The flash from underneath kept recharging her and used the lightning bolts and their impacts to push debris away, helping as best he could. A moment of distraction was almost his undoing as the person threw a large girder straight at him. Much to his surprise, before the hit had materialized itself, a large green hand stopped the girder pushing it away. The Flash had read about the person who was now floating in front of him; he was someone that turned up in Coast City a while back, who called himself The Green Lantern.

 **"Thanks for the assist, I need to be more careful"** The speedster replied to the newly arrived hero

 **"No problem, I see Frost is doing work, as usual"** the man obviously knew who the two were. **"Be careful about this guy, his name is Dr. Polaris, he showed up in Coast City a while back trying to kill me"**

 **"Thanks for the heads up. I would help her, but I need something to run on, being up in the air is a bit annoying for a speedster like me"** Barry replied.

 **"Oh, is that all you need?"** Green Lantern smiled and created a large green walkway around the ring of cars that were floating, making sure that the metal that the man was throwing could not reach the persons.

 **"That is really cool"** He replied and started to run around taking the people out. Frost saw what happened, and given that she had something to run on as well she ditched the wings and started to take people out as well.

 ** _"I don't know who that guy is, but the walkway that he made is really useful. You take one side I'll take the other?"_** Frost asked her husband mentally

 ** _"Of course, my dear. Let's get to it"_** he replied. **"Can you make sure that nothing hits us from him while we take care of the people?"**

 **"Yes. Get them out, I can handle him, for now"** Green Lantern replied and the two speedsters were on their way. The hero was witnessing the same dance of lightning that Felicity had seen before when the people on the train were in trouble. The velocity that the two were putting out was tremendous, every couple of seconds a new batch of people would appear a few hundred meters away from the incident site.

It didn't really take more than a minute for all the people to be cleared out of the flying cars. Something that impressed the Green Lantern quite a lot. He had no idea how fast the two speedsters could actually move. He had heard of them, but much like other people he was the seeing is believing kind of guy. The problem was that the magnetic villain had enough power to mess with their suits, the closer they got the slower they became.

 ** _"This is not good. We cannot run as fast as we usually do around him. It doesn't help us that most of the human body contains blood that is rich in Iron as well"_** Barry told his wife.

 ** _"No, it doesn't. I don't really want to have my blood pulled out of me either"_** She replied. The Lantern was fighting with the magnetic villain like he knew him, but the it was clear who held the advantage.

 **"Can you get him down?"** Frost asked **"If I can freeze him then the magnetic field he puts out should be diminished"**

 **"I can"** Green Lantern manifested a large fist that hit Dr. Polaris straight from above crashing him into the ground. At the same time, Barry ran back and prepared one of his supersonic punches that his the moment the villain was back up dazing him just enough for Caitlin to encase him in a block of ice.

 **"Nicely done, no wonder the people think so highly of you. I would have never thought to encase him in ice, but I don't really have ice powers either"** the green Lantern landed next to the two speedsters smiling.

 **"Sometimes we have great ideas, sometimes we do not"** the Flash replied almost instantly provoking a smirk from Frost.

 **"That ice won't hold him for long. Can we put him somewhere where he can do no harm?"** She asked

 **"Unless you have something that can drain magnetism, then no. He is immortal"** The Lantern spoke immediately

 **"We can put him in our containment system at STAR Labs. There is some tech that can drain his powers. WE have a lot of people that are there and have unusual powers, the ones that we cannot suppress to be sent away to Iron heights"** Flash replied

 **"So, you two work closely with STAR Labs? That seems surprising, I heard the owners are against conflict"** Green Lantern replied. Barry started to wonder who this new hero might be, especially since they had never used that line with anyone except for that same day with Hal Jordan and the General

 **"Yes, we do. They have helped us a lot, especially in taking care of metahumans around the city"** Frost replied. The heroes however committed a tactical error. While they were talking, Dr. Polaris managed to get himself partially free and started throwing metal spikes at them. The only one that was fast enough to notice was the Flash. The spikes were heading straight at Frost and in a moment's notice he was right behind her, most of the spikes hitting him while he fell to the ground.

The Green Lantern noticed Frost's face change instantly. She pulled out a few ice spikes of her own and threw them at the person that had managed to hit her partner. She wasn't even pulling any stops, but it was clear that the hits were not meant to kill him

 **"Frost, hit his head. He cannot die, but we need him out of action. He has to regenerate, that will give us enough time to get Flash to safety"** He spoke.

 **"Take him to STAR. Hurry. I'll take care of this asshole"** She replied. The next moment a large ice spike left her hand stopping directly in the man's forehead who fell unconscious. In a Flash of silver blue lightning he was gone, safely tucked away in a cell in the Pipeline.

Hal enveloped the Flash in a large green bubble and flew to STAR where Frost was waiting for him at the front of the building. After the bubble was opened, she disappeared along with him inside. The man tried to follow, but the doors closed behind Frost. He didn't manage to do anything more so her took off and started his trek back to Coast City. On the way a few thoughts followed him

 ** _"Seems like a coincidence, doesn't it? Barry Allen now has a wife and is owner of STAR Labs, but now I find out that Flash and Frost seem to have a connection that I would only chalk up to two people either being married or in love. The way he jumped in front of those spikes is nothing short of someone who would do anything to protect the person he loves. That coupled with the fact that, for some unknown reason, Frost took the injured Flash back to STAR Labs._**

 ** _It seems rather unlikely that the Owners of the place wouldn't know who the two heroes are, but after what Barry told me, it seems more likely that the two are actually Flash and Frost. That makes the most sense, which would explain the way Flash behaved when she was in danger. It makes perfect sense when you look at them as Husband and wife. This should be interesting, if I am indeed correct then I think we will meet each other more and more as the need arises"_** Hal thought to himself while flying in the sky

 ** _"Some people get all the luck. From a broke kid with a parent in prison, to head of a chain of laboratories that are one of the best known in the world, meeting a beautiful woman and starting a family with her. All in all, not a bad deal you got there, Barry"_** Green Lantern smiled to himself. He was happy to see his friend who had been dealt quite a bad hand by life, turning it into something positive.

Back in the Cortex Caitlin was working frenetically to take care of her husband's wounds. By chance, Bette happened to come into the cortex, she came to check on something that had been bugging her for a while

 **"What happened?"** She asked looking at an inert Barry Allen that was on the operating table with metal spikes sticking out of him

 **"We had a run in with a man that could control metal, he jumped in front of me so that I wouldn't get hit. Scrub up, I'm going to need some help fixing these wounds"** Frost told her and she complied. Five minutes later, she came back in full surgical gear starting to help Caitlin remove the spikes and deal with any extraneous bleeders and problems.

The operation took nearly 3 hours, the challenge came not from removing the foreign metals that he had in the wounds, but making sure he doesn't bleed out while they were doing it. Cisco made an appearance, the man usually had really large problems with blood and anything that would relate to proper battle wounds, but this time he stayed and helped as best he could. By the time they finished, Caitlin and Bette stood away from the table, Frost covering the speedster with a large cloud of healing fog

 **"What the hell happened, those spikes shouldn't have penetrated the fabric of the suit"** Cisco was annoyed

 **"They were manipulated by someone who had magnetic powers. I'm guessing the force they had when moving overwhelmed the nanobots completely. They couldn't absorb it, especially if the man was still controlling them"** Caitlin replied

 **"Bah. There goes my proud achievement of making tear proof material then, if it got bested by a set of Iron spikes"** the engineer had a mind to go back to the drawing board and remake everything bigger and better.

 **"Well, now we know it's not tear proof, but tear resistant. That's all. To be fair, Cisco, I think any material can break as long as there is enough force put into trying to rip or tear it. That's why I don't think that however much you try, you can make something that will not do that under any sort of circumstances. Its fine, the fabric still did its job, in a way. If it wouldn't have slowed the spikes, I suspect they would have gone straight through him and into me"** She tried to calm down the engineer stating the obvious truth.

 **"Hey"** they could hear a soft voice from the bed. The cloud had dissipater and Barry had woken up

 **"Hey yourself. How are you feeling?"** Caitlin was by his sine in less than a second

"Like I've been spiked. Nothing unusual here" He made a pun which made Bette and Cisco laugh "I heard part of the discussion about the suits. Don't blame yourself Cisco, the fabrics are fine, we just know now that even those have their limits"

 **"Yeah, they do. Time to go back to the drawing board and do better"** He smiled seeing that his friend was all right. **"Get well soon"** The engineer and Bette left toward his lab leaving the two speedsters to talk amongst themselves.

 **"It's strange, I had a feeling like I knew that guy from somewhere"** he told her while she was tending to see if his wounds were closing. The bio staples and the healing fog had an extremely accelerated effect on him.

 **"What do you mean? This is the first time we've met the guy, I would understand if we have had in the past, but …"** She got cut off

 **"I know this is rather strange to say, but somehow I have that itching feeling that Green Lantern is someone that I know"** he explained.

 **"There is only one person which could fit. Hal Jordan. We have never seen the Lantern in Central City and now, when we do, it just happens to coincides with him coming here?"** Caitlin replied sitting next to him in a chair

 **"That would be an accurate theory, but with no proof it becomes nothing more than conjecture. We're both scientists, we have theories all the time, but usually we work to prove them as well. Seeing that we have so little contact with Green Lantern, or with Hal Jordan for that matter, it's going to be hard to prove that theory"** Barry replied from the bed.

 **"He's your friend, nothing is stopping you to invite him over now and again. We can see what happens after, can we not?"** she smiled giving him a kiss

 **"That we can do, my beloved Cait, that we can do"** He replied to her while thinking when would it be a good time to invite his old friend back. He was happy that he wasn't dead, furthermore he really wanted to know what had happened to him all that time while he was apparently dead after the accident. There were many unanswered questions, which would get their turn to be solved, in time.

It took Barry another two hours to be completely on his feet, Caitlin had taken Alex and brought him in the Cortex to play with him. The speedster looked at his wife and his son playing together and thought about what his friend had said earlier smiling to himself **_"I guess I really am lucky to have found Cait. Some people could look all their lives and not find that one special person that makes them whole"_**

 ** _"Hey, it took a 9 month coma and a lightning bolt for me, so stop whining"_** He heard from his wife who was grinning while playing with their son.

 ** _"Who's whining? Definitely not me. I love you, Cait"_** he replied

 ** _"I love you too, Barry"_** the answer came while she continued to play happily with their son while he was healing.


	67. Fissures

Barry was keeping the promise he made toward his wife. After she gave birth, he started to school her in the way of the assassin, showing her what the training that he got transferred from his older self could do. The two had never trained anything except their speed so the new schedule was new to them especially with a child to take care of. Nonetheless, each morning as they had time, they went to the training room to hold sparring sessions for Caitlin to get more comfortable with the fighting style that his older double seemed to be proficient at. Barry would show her the moves in their dream scape, where they had the possibility of sparring without inflicting actual damage and she would put them to good use in the real world as they fought.

She started to get things pretty fast after a few weeks being able to consistently block and hit her husband back with the same force he put in. Since the training included real fights, where no hits were spared and done usually at full power, the next thing he showed her was how she could heal herself, and others if necessary, using vibrations that would strengthen her body and help promote extremely fast regeneration of tissues. The hits that they were applying on one another had the same effect as his older self showed them. They could be potentially lethal if used correctly and some spots would be hit with enough force, but the usual result would just be bruising and extreme fatigue as the bruising would affect the person that was hit, making the use of the healing technique a mandatory thing. It was preferred to use energy on that and eat, rather than being stuck with the purple spots that would drain their stamina. They had focused on fights along with their powers, but soon realized that they might have to use what they know against human enemies as well, so the last week or so they focused on not using their powers at all and training their strength and reflexes along with the martial arts to be able to use their newly found attacks on normal humans as well, in the case they would ever need to do so.

Another thing Caitlin got proficient at was in using the time remnants that older Barry could do as well. She could consistently make at least 3 of them without straining herself. As her husband did not use the same type of remnant as his older counterpart, she decided to do the same. Opting for a larger duration and a smaller number of copies instead of smaller durations and larger numbers. Both the speedsters could use any sort of variation of the copying technique, but their own preference was duration over numbers. Of course there were other things to teach, but the redirection of kinetic energy and the absorption of said energy was left aside for the moment, not being as important since they both had speed. Caitlin expressed her want to learn those techniques as well, but later since she realized they were of use in highly situational encounters and only if they were alone, or one of them was incapacitated. As older Barry put it, there was no use to use that technique as it would drain the speed around them as well as from the speedster that wasn't using it.

That morning, the two Allens, who had just finished their usual morning training and sparring session, were in the Cortex using their bit of free time, almost as any other bit of free time they had, to find a solution to Bette's problem. They had been doing so for quite some time in what they would call free time, when Alex was asleep and they did not have anything else to work on. The engineer always thanked them for it and they always told him to stuff it, they had promised to try to help her and they were doing just that. Besides, they were doing it for their best friend, something that gave them extreme drive to find a solution for her issue. Bette came into the cortex herself to check on security matters, however it only took a few minutes and things started getting weird.

Everything started changing, at first it was just the look of the cortex, but then Bette showed up with an unfamiliar uniform and talking about things that never happened. The only thing that the couple was able to recognize from the uniform was the large swastika that was on the front, kind of like the symbol to an empire of some sort. While she changed, Cisco started flat out disappearing, his silhouette becoming more and more faded like he was in Back to the future.

 **"Are you seeing this too?"** Barry asked his wife to make sure he isn't going mad

"Yes, they look like time disturbances, is someone messing with the timeline again?" The moment she thought that, Jax and Ray came running into the Cortex.

 **"Come with us. This timeline is slowly disappearing and you will with it unless we get you to the Wave Rider"** Ray yelled. Caitlin didn't want to leave, but she saw Alex shimmering away into nothing in her arms and the same process being started on her, Barry and the building.

 **"Ray, if I take Alex with us will he be safe from the timeline changing in the ship?"** She asked. She knew that once a timeline is broken, as per Professor Stein's explanation, there were chances of cracks that would appear. She didn't want to have her child disappear due to one of those **"mistakes"** in time.

 **"Yes, take him with you. He should be safe aboard the Wave Rider as the timeline changes"** the answer came. The two sped away with Ray and Jax to their vacation house where the large ship was stationed. Caitlin had brought their son along. The moment they got into the ship and it took off, they saw their property changing, the same shimmers creating a new image on the landscape, something that resembled a concentration camp or a prison, with high walls and a lot of guards herding people like cattle around.

The two flashed to the control room as they saw the familiar green tint of the time vortex in front of them. The wave rider had entered it and came to a dead stop. Sara came down from the pilot seat.

"Phew, thank god we managed to get to you before the timeline completely crumbled and I see you brought a little guest with you" she said with a sigh

 **"What the hell happened? Why was my child about to disappear? Why is STAR gone?"** Caitlin asked quite alarmed. Barry managed to calm her down, however he was not without worry as she could clearly feel.

"I told you we have had problems with our own villains. Well. This time they really screwed up" she began to explain "They went back to 1942, initially it appeared that they went there for a piece of the Spear of Destiny, which is what they were after all this time while we were following them. However, they decided to stay. The large issue now is Eobard Thawne. Remember him?"

"Oh god, not that guy again. Why doesn't someone just kill him, or throw him into the Speed force or something. He's beginning to be a real pain in our behinds" Barry managed to articulate with an angry voice "What in god's blazes has he done now?"

"He was a scientist, before he became the Reverse Flash. Nevertheless, you already knew that. The problem with him is simple, he started giving future technology to the Germans, back in world war two. The timeline collapse that you were seeing was from the fact that as far as we can tell from our own instruments, the Axis managed to invade the united states with their new weapons and win the war. That is what lead to this happening" The explanation came

"Which means the timeline has already been cracked. There will be changes that will come after this episode, won't there?" Barry asked quite distraught

"Time has begun to shift, but not completely, the timeline is not yet broken, probably because we intend to go back and fix it. However, the stability of the time space continuum is fluctuating as long as we aren't there. Seeing that Eobard is a major threat, we thought that you guys would be interested in getting him" Professor Stein commented from a corner.

"Yeah, we'll help you put an end to his plans. However yet again we are barred from killing him. Which is such a pity" Barry voiced making everyone except Caitlin pull a surprised look.

"I thought you were against killing, Barry. What happened to that old rule you had?" Ray asked

"I still have it, but when something threatens my family and my child with disappearing into the void, they deserve what's coming to them" His voice was calm, his eyes filled with conviction and lightning dancing all over them. The crew of the Wave rider had not seen this side of the speedster, the man that would do anything and kill anyone to make sure his family and his child were safe, but some of them understood why that change happened and said nothing.

"Gideon, can the fabrication room provide us with a crib for our child?" Barry asked.

"Yes, Barry Allen. I have started fabricating it since you arrived. It should be finished now. I suggest you put him in one of the crew quarters after we jump. He still has to be secured while we do the jump however, but after that, I will be able to keep an eye on him" The Ai replied

"Thank you, Gideon for thanking about that in advance" Caitlin smiled at the Ai who replied meekly

"No need, Dr. Allen. It would be a pity if something happened to him while you were out trying to save the timeline. I will take good care of him" Frost was surprised at the candor of the responses given by the AI, but soon figured out that the crew was right. Gideon was showing compassion and caring, something that an AI shouldn't have had. She was happy knowing that her child would be safe as they would undertake whatever it was necessary to fix the timeline.

"Right, so with that said. How long do we have to fix all of this before the new timeline sets in and the old timeline is shot to hell?" Caitlin asked instantly

"Caitlin, remember, time is pretty much irrelevant to us since we can go as further back as we want. This time however we need to make sure that We take care of the disturbance as organically as we can. There is something strange however, the time quake, this time around, is so severe that it doesn't let us jump to the particular day that it happened. We will have to jump several weeks later and make sure nothing happens. Even if they managed to get a spot in the Nazi science division, we have to make sure they disappear" Sara added.

"This is the first time we have encountered an aberration so powerful that it doesn't even let us go back to where it started. The choice would be a few months before they arrive, or a few weeks after. I assume you two don't want to live a few months in the 1940's … do you?" Ray inquired

"Not so much, no. But if we delay the arrival by a few weeks, wouldn't that be already too late? I mean I've seen some of that future tech that Eobard has, besides, he is a speedster, he can have some of those devices ready almost instantly" Barry managed to make a point.

"That point is already moot, Barry Allen" Gideon flared up from the console "The disturbance that he created will still be there and unless we can take care of everything related to it, any sort of technology he might have created or left behind or anything that might give the Germans an advantage in this war, then the outcome could be the same"

"That means we have to find out what they left and where they left it, destroy it and come back. Is that what I understood?" Caitlin asked the AI

"Yes, Dr. Allen. That is correct. I can track any sort of advanced tech with the wave rider's sensors and I can scan the timeline to find out if there might be any remnants of the tech that the Reverse Flash gave them. It should be easy to pinpoint what needs destroyed" the AI replied.

"However it might not be as easy to get to where we need to. We are going into the heart of Nazi Germany, in a time where everything was secured, everyone had papers and I suspect most of that tech will be somewhere where no mere low hanging fruit can get to it. We might run into some trouble back there" Jax voiced his concerns.

"What about you? Won't attract attention in that era too? I'm not that versed in European history, but a black man in 1940's Germany, that might present an issue" Barry inquired

"That is a very good point, which is why I won't be going with you. I will have to stay and monitor everything from here. The problem is you will be going undercover, which means you will have to make do without Firestorm this round. I will probably not be able to get to you in time. Besides, with no offense to you, Gideon, I doubt a translucent shape that is only a projection can properly take care of a child, so, since I'm staying back, I will make sure little Alex is well taken care of" Jax replied.

"No offense taken, Jefferson. You are entirely correct in stating that a holographic form cannot take care of a child" Gideon replied serenely.

 **"We'll have to handle it then. Come on, let's get going"** Sara spoke from the other side of the room. Everyone went to the bridge and strapped in, Caitlin making sure that Alex was safe, the Wave rider making it's jump in time as close to the anomaly as it could. They put the ship down in a forest outside a small town that had a castle adjacent to it.

"This is where the time anomalies started. From this castle, which is in reality a research facility in disguise, there was an influx of future tech that will help Germany win the war. We need to stop that or our timeline will not exist anymore" Sara explained.

"I have already fabricated for you proper attire for the time period you were in as well as documentation that will help you get inside the facility" Gideon voiced from a nearby console without showing the usual transparent form

 **"Thank you, Gideon"** Sara voiced. Her, along with Barry, Caitlin, Professor Stein, Ray and Mick were dressed and all ready to go after a few minutes, leaving the wave rider and making their way toward the village.

The location in itself was as inconspicuous as you could make it. Just a normal farming village with a few houses and a lot of land around that was visibly used for agriculture. On one of the hills overlooking the town, there was an old castle, very large and surrounded by walls. It almost looked unused, except that you could see from afar the fact that they had sentinels on the lookout and guards at the large gate.

"Well, we got our clothes and papers, but not so much information about our actual identities" Barry was surprised.

"The people you are going in as right now were a group of scientists that were captured by the ally forces in route to this location. The news of their capture and later defection is months away, which gives you perfect cover to assume their identities" Gideon responded through their communicators.

"Gideon, I don't think there is one person here who speaks fluent German, if we speak English its more than likely that we will be taken to the dungeon as spies" Caitlin realized that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time to not know the language.

"I can speak German, as well as Ray and I think Professor Stein can as well" Sara replied "As for the others, Gideon can translate what is being said to you and tell you what to say. That will have to do I'm afraid. Which means you will have to let us do the talking"

"That is fine by us. Come on, let's try to get in there and see what the hell those three idiots did this time" Barry replied with an annoyed voice.

"One more thing, could you provide us with the speedster formula for Alex? I have scanned the timeline and found out that he needs to be fed every 6 hours in order for his growing body to not go into hypoglycemic shock" Gideon said with a calm voice.

 **"Yes, here it is"** Caitlin went to a console and put in what the AI had asked, being thoroughly surprised that she had scanned the timeline to find out what the child needed and made sure that he had it **"Can you fabricate this?"**

"Yes, Dr. Allen. My fabricators can create anything from any time period. With the formula put in I should have no problems in making the nutrients that your child requires" The response came.

"Thank you for thinking about that, Gideon. We did not, since we regarded our stay here as short. However, this mission might take considerably longer and Alex has to stay with the ship" Barry smiled toward the translucent figure.

 **"You are welcome. Alex will be well taken care of. Don't worry about him"** The AI replied with what could only be interpreted as a smile coming from her projected face.

The group of people approached the castle and they were stopped by the guards. Sara and Martin did the talking as well as presenting their papers, Barry and Caitlin were surprised, the two not only being fluent in German, but understanding the undertones of the language as well. They managed to get access to the courtyard, the process repeating itself when they arrived at the main entrance. They were directed to a large door that revealed a hidden elevator, Two floors underground the soldier that came with them lead them to a large hall where other people were frantically working on different projects.

"Look at that, there are things here that aren't to be discovered for at least 50 years" Professor Stein spoke softly as to not be heard.

"You`re right, I'm pretty sure that is a microwave pulse weapon. The other one that is on the stand there seems to be a high powered laser and last but not least the piece of alloy that we saw being taken out looked a lot like the same material we used in the armor plating that was installed in STAR" Caitlin voiced her concerns "These things shouldn't be used the way they are for at least another 30 or so years. No wonder they managed to win the war"

The group was split up almost immediately by a person who they didn't recognize, but by the way he barked orders around it seemed like he was the supervisor in charge. Barry and Caitlin, along with Martin were taken in a different wing where the surprises continued. There were schematics of things that looked like stealth aircraft on one of the tables as well as some machines that looked very much like spikes wheels with guns. Stein was surprised at the creativity of the German scientists present, they managed to integrate the Future tech that the others brought.

Ray and Sara, along with Mick were taken to a different wing of the facility. There they saw different plans for different weapons that were not able to be modified to support the tech which was brought it. Their job apparently, since for some reason Gideon decided to make Mick a weapons expert was to find a way to make them work. The fabrication plans were laid all across the table and the man that came with them motioned to get to work.

"Something doesn't seem right. Does it feel to anyone like we got inside a top secret research facility just a bit too easily?" Mick voiced his concerns and Sara agreed

"Yes, it was like we were being expected, but on the other hand, in this time period Germany gets its brains from wherever they can, because they want to win the war. That might have something to do with it"

"I would say the same, either way, we have to be on the lookout and watch our back, I don't know why but something here still smells wrong" Ray added as they started to pretend they were working on the weapons that were in front of them.

After a few hours, Barry, Caitlin and Martin were presented with a dilemma. A strange woman came up to them and started asking questions. Something was definitely wrong, she had information that she wasn't supposed to.

 **"Who are you people?"** the brunette asked quite softly and making sure nobody heard

"I'm afraid you will have to be more specific, Miss" Martin replied in his perfect German

"I know you aren't who you say you are, the allied forces captured the transport that held the people you pretend to be" She replied

"I see. You are an infiltrator. The person who is supplying us with information guaranteed that there will be no news of the missing scientists for weeks" Barry replied looking at her pretty sternly

"I see, so you are indeed spies then. Who do you work for?" she inquired almost immediately

"We don't work for anyone, except ourselves. There is some technology here that isn't supposed to exist yet. We came to make sure it disappears" Martin jumped into the conversation

"What do you mean, it's not supposed to exist yet? How would you know that?" the woman looked at them funny

"It's a lot to explain, but this isn't the time. I suspect your entire role in this is about the same as ours?" Caitlin inquired entering herself in the conversation

"Yes. The allies have had reports that some weird technology is coming out of this research facility. They sent someone to investigate, but that man died, he asked me to continue his mission, so I took it upon myself to finish what he started" the brunette spoke while making sure nobody was listening in.

"Then I would guess it would be beneficial to share information if anything. Do you know where they are going to house us?" Martin inquired

"Yes, there are room in the castle that aren't taken, but the halls are guarded, I doubt we can establish a meeting place without being discovered. Also there have been strange things that happen at night. I could swear that I could see red lightning running through the halls" She said with a surprised face, it was obvious that she didn't really understand what was happening.

"So we were right, Eobard is here. Not surprising" Caitlin made a grimace at the name

"Who is this Eobard you speak of? I see you know more about the lightning than I do" The woman immediately wanted more information

"The lightning you saw was him running. He is from far into the future where some humans receive super powers through an accident that happens. His power is speed, he can move was beyond the velocity of sound and he creates that lightning when he runs. He is the reason we are here. Being from the future, he brought with him technology that has no place in this time" Barry decided to let her in on what happened, but the more he spoke, the more the woman's face changed and her jaw dropped.

"But if you know all that? Does that mean you are from the future as well?" the question came

"Yes, with his meddling and his two buddies, he is trying to change the timeline so that the Germans win, by giving them enough tech to overwhelm the US and their allies. We are basically here to make sure that doesn't happen. Time must not be changed" Caitlin offered her a half explanation.

"Ok, that … was something that I was not expecting. The others that have arrived with you are the same?" she wanted to know who not to rat out and who needed to be kept around.

"Yes. They are part of our team. We would appreciate it if you could manage to keep them off our backs while we do our investigations. Also … if by any chance you see orange lightning or silver blue lightning around, beside the red one you have already witnessed, don't worry about it" Martin smiled politely to the woman in front of him.

"Am I to understand that at least two people from your group have … powers then?" she cautiously asked.

"I think we should keep some things for ourselves. She might even be a double agent and we might have already said too much. We can get everybody out if anything happens, but then we won't have the upper hand on Eobard anymore and going in guns blazing I don't think will get us anywhere" Caitlin told her husband mentally

"I would agree with that. Let's just … give her something, but not enough for her to make the connection. If she proves trustworthy and helps enough, then we can let her in on our little secret" the answer came

 **"You are to understand whatever you desire, for now let's just stick with that"** Caitlin smiled at the person in front of her. She realized that it was obvious they wouldn't want to share more. They have just met then and from their perspective, she could have been a double agent.

"Very well. I would however want to know what your intentions are here" she continued

"I suspect similar to yours. We came here to make sure this technology never exists and to prevent the changes that the person who brought it here wants to happen" Barry chimed in

"I see, I actually was sent to secure that technology for the allies, but if what you tell me is true, nobody should have it. I will choose to trust your judgement then, I will do whatever I can to help you make sure this tech never reaches anyone, even if that is not the mission I was sent to finish" the woman said rather sternly

"Thank you for the vote of confidence. Yes, we would rather see it destroyed; we don't know what backlash it would cause if the allies get this. It's better of being discovered and used in its own time" Martin replied.

 **"Welcome to the team, even if it's temporary, Miss …"** he stopped realizing the person had not introduce herself.

"My name is Diana Prince. Just don't use that name here, I am still under cover you know" she gave them a smile

"I'm Barry Allen, this is my wife Caitlin and Professor Martin Stein" Barry extended a hand and they shook on it.

"How will we stay in touch? The guards patrol the dormitories at night and there is almost no way to bypass them" she asked them pretty seriously

"Take this. Put it in your ear. You will be able to communicate with us just like we can. If you need to talk to us just touch your ear, it will create a connection to us" Caitlin extended her hand giving her an extra transmitter that she had taken from the Wave Rider, thinking ahead in case they lost theirs.

The day passed without any further incidents, the people trying to get as much information as they could from the amount of plans and blueprints that were laid out around the rooms they were put in. Most of them were very advanced even for their time, which then raised the question if Eobard was actually trying to bring the technology level up sooner so that he could build another particle accelerator somewhere, but that remained unanswered. Later that night, they went to their assigned rooms, Barry and Caitlin getting their own since the people that were impersonating were married much like they were, the rest getting their own rooms. They thought it would be a good idea to have a status update as to what they found.

 **"Sara, you were right. There is technology here that doesn't belong"** Martin started to make a list of the things that they were supposed to make … disappear.

"Yes, there are even plans for some weapons that I haven't even see in our time. The only other place where I saw anything remotely powerful was in the future back when we were hunting Savage through time" she replied.

"There is another problem. We managed to get our eyes on some new plane schematics. First of all, they are equipped with Microwave pulse weapons and Laser Cannons. As you might guess those have barely been invented in our time. The other problem is, they seem to not use fuel, they are powered by what I can only categorize as a small fusion generator. That type of tech is too advanced even for our time" Caitlin chimed in

 **"Hello? Is this thing on?"** they heard an unfamiliar voice

"Who is that? Did someone manage to hack our frequency?" Jax pitched in with a scared voice.

"No. We met someone who could help and gave her a communicator. Her name is Diana Prince and she wants to help. Go ahead Diana, we can hear you" Barry replied.

"This technology is indeed amazing. Anyway, I heard what you said before and the problem is bigger than you think. One of the hills outside the compound is hollow. Inside there is a plane hangar filled to the brim with actual working prototypes of the plans you saw back in the machine shop" She explained why she had to intervene in the conversation

"Wait, they actually managed to build those things?" Martin interjected.

"Yes, they are bigger than on the plans and they look like they are supposed to house an invasion force more than anything. They are not war planes, not bombers or anything related. They seem to be transporters. I saw one open up while I was in the hangar today, by my estimates it can hold at least 1000 soldiers and a few of those wheel machines. Not to mention at least three tanks" the reply came

"It would make sense that they would prepare an invasion of some kind. They would have no other way to conquer the US which is on the other side of the pond without some sort of transporter" Barry put his thoughts out there as well.

"Diana, think there is any chance you could take us tomorrow to see the planes and the hangar? We need to make some sort of plan for the destruction of those monstrosities" Martin asked the infiltrator

"I can try. But I have to make sure that it doesn't put a spotlight on me. WE can discuss this throughout the day tomorrow, via the communicators if needed. For now, we should rest. WE are going to have a tough couple of days to come" She suggested and everyone agreed. However, Caitlin required an additional piece of information

"Jax, how is Alex?"

"He is fine, I fed him and changed him, and Gideon of all people has been keeping him entertained and busy so he doesn't get bored while you two are away. I'm actually going to go out on a limb and say that our AI friend actually likes the little one" The two could hear a chuckle coming over the coms.

"It is not a question of liking, Jefferson" Gideon interjected "This is the child of the people that created me, it would be without question that I do what I can to help them. Besides, the little one is pretty cute, when he isn't crying or hungry" That last remark made both Barry and Caitlin laugh, thanking the Ai for taking care of their child. The channels were closed and most of them went back to sleep. However, our two speedsters stayed a up a bit longer to see if they could spot the red lightning that Diana was talking about. They did manage to do so, but not in the dorms, there was a shipment outside that needed unloading and when that arrived, the familiar red lightning took care of everything. They had all the proof they needed that Eobard was here and was helping destabilize the timeline.


	68. Present

The next morning they were woken up at an early hour almost like they were in boot camp and sent to the mess hall to eat. It did make sense that would happen. They were in a war and every minute they lost sleeping could be something used for the glory of the all mighty commander. They noticed how the guards they managed to talk to, which were not many, completely idolized the man. This made them weary of speaking to more of them. Something said in a wrong tone would mean getting dragged to prison or worse. However, the fact that they were almost dragged to the eating area proved to be very fortunate for our group, because they managed to sit at the same table and talk without having ears around. Diana joined them as well.

 **"Diana, we did see the red lightning you were talking about. We can now confirm that Eobard is here. Which means we have to be careful, he already knows me and Caitlin from … a previous encounter, so we have to stay away or risk being discovered"** Barry spoke softly so that he would not be heard by the other people eating.

 **"We have to be careful then as well. Those three already know most of us, for all the times we managed to put their plans to rest or foil them all together"** Sara added.

 **"So we have a bit of an issue. The only person who can actually move around free of any sort of danger is Diana. Any of us run into the possibility of meeting someone who will expose us"** Caitlin put in words what many of them were thinking about.

 **"Then we will have to keep our heads down and figure out as much as we can"** Martin chipped in

 **"Don't worry about gathering information. I have been here for quite a while now and I can get into most of the secured locations without drawing attention to myself. But I do need to know what I'm looking for, so I can help you get rid of these guys"** Diana wanted to help

 **"What we are looking for, Ms. Prince, is any sort of technology that would not fit into this time period. Microwave weapons, laser weapons, fusion reactors. Anything that will stand out and you could think about it as "magic", for lack of a better word is probably not supposed to be here"** Martin continued

 **"So, like a plane that doesn't need fuel and somehow flies despite being too large"** she returned.

 **"Yes, precisely like that"** the professor smiled at her.

 **"We will have to destroy them all at once. Jax, you on the line?"** Barry asked.

 **"Yes, what's the matter?"** the voice came through

 **"We are going to need at least 40 speedster power bars. We intend to use the phasing trick with all the things that are here and are not supposed to be here. But especially with those giant aircraft we will need a lot of power to do so"** Caitlin completed her husband's thoughts.

 **"I will start making them immediately. When you want to proceed all you have to do is come to the bay and they will be there as requested"** Gideon acknowledged the speedsters need.

 **"Thank you, Gideon"** They finished eating and went to their respective assigned jobs. Even while not being able to scout the mansion to find out more, the amount of information that they managed to get while just working was astounding. They would have blueprints made available to them that they would have never been able to reach unless they were on the inside. Barry and Caitlin started destroying them by phasing them out as soon as they could. In just a few hours most of them were already gone, but there was always the danger of Eobard making more.

Sara and the others started to do the same, but more covertly. She was a master manipulator and had training that would even enhance that part of her. However the two speedsters and professor Stein were not. While they did manage to make most of the advanced blueprints disappear, that attracted some unwanted attention. There were guards posted inside the room where they worked, since the Supervisor started noticing that important plans were beginning to disappear.

Gideon, through Diana's communicator which also had a small camera managed to get pictures of all the places that she had been through. The hangars and the armory seemed like the most packed with ready to use technology while the **"war room"** as they called it was the place that yielded information about the plans that the Germans had for that tech. They weren't surprised to see Malcom Merlyn in a Nazi general's uniform along with Damien Darhk and Eobard as the scientist. They already knew that the speedster was indeed a brilliant person in his time.

That night while everyone was in their rooms, they heard commotion and discussions in the front yard. The Furher himself had come to discuss business with the three people that were in charge of the facility. For the first time, the time travelers were all in one place and the two speedsters could see them clearly, but as much as they wanted, they could not listen in, the voices were far and they were deliberately keeping the volume down before they entered the castle.

 **"Guys, I just saw the big honcho arrive and going inside the castle. Looks like they want to have some sort of meeting. Do we have surveillance on them?"** Barry aske thought his comm.

 **"No, we didn't want to run the risk of giving the Germans micro camera technology ahead of its time, that could be used for … high powered scopes and other sort of things"** Ray explained

 **"We still need to find out what the hell they are talking about. I'm going to try to sneak my way up to them. Gideon, can your sensors scan the building from where the ship is?"** Sara asked the Ai

 **"Not at high resolution, Sara. I can offer you an indication of where there are people and if they are moving, but nothing more than that. I would have to relocate the Wave rider in order to give you an accurate reading"** Gideon told her.

 **"Would that present a problem?"** Ray entered the conversation **"I doubt that in this era they have the technology required to detect the Wave Rider"**

 **"They might not, but our unfriendly speedster might have that. Since we blundered their plans so many times, it would be only logical to have some sort of device that would alert him if the ship was anywhere close to him"** Martin voiced his thoughts.

 **"Then the scans you can do from there will have to do. Keep me updated on the positions of the people that are closest to me as well as you can"** Sara told the Ai

 **"Understood. Sara, I think it's worth to mention that if you get caught, you will be treated like a spy and more than likely faced with a death squad"** The answer came

 **"Aww, if I didn't know better, I would think you were worried about me, Gideon"** The assassin said with a chuckle.

 **"I am. I would rather not have to break in another captain in such a short time"** The bluntness of the Ai's statement made everyone that heard it chuckle, but it was obvious as much as an AI could care about a person, Gideon cared about Sara.

The assassin went to work, using Gideon for guidance it took her only about half an hour to sneak through the castle to reach what Diana had dubbed the war room.

 **"I don't want any excuses"** The man in charge raised his voice **"We need this technology ready as soon as you can make it. I want to start the invasion in at most a couple of days. The armies and the tanks that are supposed to go into those planes are already marching here"**

 **"Herr Hitler, we are working as fast as we can, but even with the number of scientists here, the technology is so advanced that they need time to be able to manufacture it"** Malcolm spoke from the back

 **"I do not care, do what you have to, but I want the planes and the machines ready by the time I come back in two days. The army should reach here by tomorrow night and the invasion will begin. We are running out of time, the allied forces are planning a large scale attack and we have to give them something to worry about somewhere else. Europe is mine"** he said with a raspy annoyed voice, leaving the room. Sara turned to leave the same way she came in but in the blink of an eye she was strapped to a chair in the middle of the room. The Furher came back to have one final say

 **"Who is this woman? And why is she in our command center?"** He asked.

 **"This is a known allied commander of a guerrilla team. She has tried to steal secrets from us before, but managed to escape. It would seem that she has somehow managed to infiltrate the compound and she is never alone. I would request the usage of a death squad to have her executed in the morning"** Eobard voices with a meek look on his face.

 **"Yes, kill the spy. We do not need people like her to foil our plans. Find out everything she knows and if she has instigators or other spies along with her. Be thorough in your search and execute them all to keep what we do here from the allies"** the man replied and exited the room, going back to his car.

 **"Well, I would have never thought that you would be so stupid as to come alone"** Darhk grinned at the person who was tied to the chair **"Thawne, I suggest you make a quick run through the dormitories and get the others. We all know by now that she never travels alone. We should take care of them so they do not hinder our plans"** They nodded and Thawne instantly flashed out coming back with Stein, Ray and Mick.

 **"Now there are some faces I hope I would not see for the rest of our trip here"** Merlyn voice while looking at the people that were tied and gagged to chairs in the **room "How soon can we have a death squad ready to kill them?"**

 **"You know, I could take them out right now"** Thawne suggested vibrating one of his hands and pointing it at Sara

 **"No, Eobard. Let them be executed for everyone to see. The people that are loyal will get morale and they will be happy that we caught some spies, while at the same time, if there are any more spies in our midst, these ones will serve as an example as to what will happen to them if they get caught"** Merlyn spoke.

 **"Not like that is not what happens to all spies this day and age"** Darhk chuckled **"But it would be beneficial for our cause to execute them publically. Like Merlyn said, making examples out of so many people at once will prove that we don't mess around. Who knows, maybe some of their friends, if they have any here that we don't know about, might try to rescue them. That will enable us to flush out any more infiltrators we might have here"**

 **"All right. I see your point"** Eobard flashed all of them to the dungeon of the castle waiting for morning. Barry and Caitlin however were very worried, they had not heard from their friend in a long while.

 **"Gideon, what's happening? Why have all the others gone dark?"** Barry asked the AI

 **"My sensors show that the others have been captured, Barry Allen. Not soon after the leader's car exited the premises I detected a surge of energy, kind of like you two produce when you run and one by one, the other's com links went dead. The sensors show me that they were taken to where Sara was initially going. But after that I lost them, it was like they disappeared from the castle grounds"** The Ai explained to the speedster.

 **"Could it be possible that they were taken somewhere where your sensors do not reach?"** Diana asked through her comm.

 **"Explain, Ms. Prince?"** Gideon inquired

 **"The castle has a dungeon, or something akin to one. It is at the very last level of the facility, pretty deep underground, built out of what were initially some catacombs that were used for the lord of the land to escape from the fortress in case of attack"** The woman explained what she knew of the layout.

 **"It would explain why my sensors cannot reach to see if they are all right. At this distance the only thing I can scan is the structure above ground"** Gideon answered swiftly **"The detection devices in the Wave Rider are impaired by the distance and by the layers of earth that are between the ship and the people we are looking for"**

 **"Diana, you have been here longer than most of us. What will happen to them?"** Caitlin said with worry in her voice

 **"If they aren't dead already then more than likely they will be executed by death squad in the morning. They will be considered spies and killed publicly to make examples out of them"** she said quite bluntly

 **"Then we still have some time to get them out. Hopefully Eobard did not kill them immediately"** Barry let out a sigh of relief

 **"Usually the executions are carried out in the morning. I will try to be around. You two intend to save them I guess?"** Diana asked quite bluntly the speedster couple.

 **"Yes. Of course we do. However there is a problem. If the executions are carried out publicly, then we need some way to make sure the people that are there do not see us under any circumstances. Humans with superpowers being seen 50 years before they get created can cause quite some issues in the timeline itself"** Barry tried to explain

 **"This will seem strange, considering that the three are actively trying to change the timeline. But if you have noticed, Eobard rarely uses his powers out in public here. Most of the time he does it's either night or there is no one around. That is what I considered as weird"** Caitlin cut him off.

 **"There is nothing more that we can do at this time. I suggest you run over to the ship and get some power bars. Tomorrow you might need a lot of energy"** Gideon told the two speedsters who complied. Coming back in their room a few seconds with 20 bars in a small bag. They all went to sleep making sure to have Gideon wake them up as soon as their friends were detected outside.

Barry and Caitlin had a restless night. Even though they were in their shared dream scape swimming and resting, the amount of sleep they got was all right at best. They were worried about their friends and what might happen to them.

 **"I hope we make it in time to let the timeline heal. I don't want any sort of weird after effects after this happens"** Barry told his wife mentally while they were still in bed.

 **"Whatever happens we will have to deal with it. I wish we could just kill Eobard once and for all, his younger self is being a real pain in the ass. This is the second time that we had to travel through time to fix something some shit he did"** Caitlin said with a bit of disdain.

 **"I know. This whole, let's wreck the timeline because we're bad guys that have nothing else better to do is getting old. We got annoyed and we only came back two times to help. Imagine the others, that's all they do day in they out, however, since they have to protect the timeline, they can't outright kill the villains. Time is such a strange thing, but I guess it doesn't care about good people or bad people, it just moves on"** Barry replied giving her a long good morning kiss. They went and had a shower and by the time they were done, Gideon was calling them on their communicators.

 **"The others have been taken outside, I detect faint signals from their communication devices and their life signs"**

 **"Do you have a visual on the firing range? Or wherever the others were taken to be killed?"** Jax inquired.

 **"I do, I managed to sneak out of my room and follow them. They are in the back of the castle in what can be called a garden. I don't know if you can see them"** Diana promptly answered.

 **"I guess it's time to get this show on the road"** Barry smile and flashed into his suit. Caitlin returned his grin and flashed into her suit as well changing appearance almost instantly.

 **"Diana, are there people there to watch except the three stooges and the firing squad?"** Barry asked knowing that they would have to make sure that they aren't seen.

 **"Surprisingly enough, no. However, the people that have rooms with a view of the back of the castle will be able to see what is going on. I thought about what you have said regarding not being seen and this morning while I was sneaking around, I planted an explosive in the basement area, powerful enough to cause a ruckus, but not to kill anyone. When detonated it will more than likely trigger an alarm and the people will have to evacuate to the lower floors. That should give you enough time to save them"** She said quite bluntly

 **"What about you? If we do this then we will have to start what we have planned. Aren't you afraid you'll be discovered?"** Caitlin was worried about her safety

 **"It doesn't matter. I can take care of myself. Do not worry about me. Go save your friends"** She told them with an authoritative voice. The two flashed outside and remained out of sight as the firing squad was tying their friends to some poles that were there. It was obvious they were there for that exact purpose. They thought it would be a good idea to stock up on energy since they had the bars so as long as they remained hidden then munched on a few.

 **"Gideon, I assume that we have to not kill the soldiers for a minimum impact on the timeline?"** Barry asked the computer making sure that what they were about to do was not going to do more harm than good.

 **"Yes, you are correct, Barry Allen. You can do what you wish with the three time travelers, but the people that are there have to survive. Some of them will even survive the war and go home and have families"** the answer came instantly.

 **"I guess this is it for you. What a surprise, the rag tag team of time cops that have managed to ditch dinosaurs, escape the crusades unharmed and other things, now put in the front of a simple firing squad. I am going to enjoy this"** Eobard smirked **"Squad, take aim"** he commanded the soldiers who did as they were told immediately. At the instant he gave the order for them to fire, the speedsters came out of their hiding place. In their extended time scape, the two managed to knock the guns out of the soldier's hands, Caitlin rushing to the poles and unshackling the people that were there. The next thing they did was to grab Eobard and take him away from the eyes of the people. They deposited him in a field with nobody around.

 **"Fancy meeting you here, Eobard. I thought you made it clear that you will need to watch over your shoulder wherever you go if you try to mess with the timeline again"** Barry spoke in his usual voice

 **"What are you doing here? This was supposed to be our greatest work"** He instantly stood up and change din his costume with his cowl put down. It was not needed since the people that were in front of him already knew who he was.

 **"Simple, we detected changes in time, our world from the future started changing, so … we came back to stop you. I would have thought a genius scientist like yourself would have figured that already"** Caitlin smirked at him.

 **"It doesn't matter. I have prepared something special for my next meeting with you. I might not be as fast, but I can always improvise"** He started to run in a random direction. Barry and Caitlin wanted to follow him, but it seemed that it wasn't needed. After a few seconds, he came back, but versions of him kept appearing until they were 10 versions of himself standing face to face to our speedsters **"Now what will you do, there is only two of you and 10 of me. Even if I am slower I can still kill you"** He was sure of himself, his face held a confidence that was apparent and unwavering.

 **"Oh, this trick. Well … we can play that game too"** Caitlin smirked leaving the evil speedster with a surprised look on his face. They started to run, they have never tried to make more than 3 time remnants a piece, but now they were surging with energy from the bars they had eaten previously. As they came back, Eobard started to wince. Barry and Caitlin produced 5 time remnants that were now standing near them much like his were.

 **"You see, this trick is pretty old from our perspective. Now … what were you saying about having us outnumbered?"** Barry smirked at the villain. In a moment of rage the original lunged at the person in front of him only to be stopped rather easily. **"You`re too slow, Eobard"** The Flash smiled clocking him one in the chin. The time remnants started to attack our heroes, It was a battle of endurance in which Eobard would lose, The two Allens having the luxury of the power bars that Gideon produced.

The conflict in itself didn't take very long, from the perspective of a normal human less than 5 minutes had passed when most of Eobard's time remnants were either frozen or taken out. Caitlin having fun with them, using her ice powers to produce walls and ice bombs that would either make them phase or outright hit them and taking them out. Sadly, that was not the end of it, When all the remnants were down, they discovered that the original had high tailed it out of there. Caitlin thought she noticed someone running away, but being under constant attack she had to focus on the matter at hand.

 **"God damn it, Eobard isn't here"** Barry said with annoyance.

 **"Let's go back to the others, the original might be there and our friends might be in trouble"** Caitlin replied and in a few seconds they were running like bats out of hell back to the castle. As they arrived, they saw a shooting taking place between the soldiers that had now regained consciousness, Merlyn which got a bow from somewhere and Darhk who seemed very proficient with the guns he had at hand. Something that they didn't expect however was seeing Diana, who had come out of the shadows to protect the people that were there.

Assessing the situation, they saw that Ray had gotten shot in the chest, Sara was struggling with a wound on her arm and Mick was injured as well. A piece of shrapnel that had mostly come out of a grenade, was embedded in his lower thigh. However, Diana was unharmed, which was surprising considering that most of the shots went straight at her. In the extended time scape Barry and Caitlin noticed that she was indeed hit, her suit having multiple holes, but the bullets would just bounce off her or simply fall down when they hit her.

 ** _"I wonder if she's someone else that has arrived here from Krypton. Her powers are frighteningly similar to what we know Kara and Kal can do"_** Barry thought about what he saw.

 ** _"I don't know, but at this time let us be thankful that she kept our friends from being killed"_** The reply came as the couple instantly dismantled the weapons that the soldiers held in their hands, knocking them out a second time, then coming face to face with Merlyn and Darhk.

 **"Great, now they got backup. Malcolm I think it's time we get the hell out of here"** the man spoke with ire in his voice

 **"Where do you think we can run? These two are like Thawne, we could try to run far away and they would still catch us faster than it takes to blink"** the archer replied still trying to hit the speedsters who were just grinning in his face catching his arrows and sometimes even turning them back at him, just for the sake of showing him how powerless he was. Their savior came in the form of a red lightning trail that took them away. Barry and Caitlin wanted to go after them, but they had other things to take care of. One by one they took the injured people to the Wave Rider, making sure Gideon could take care of them. On their last trip, Caitlin grabbed Diana as well, but left her in the clearing where the ship was stationed and cloaked.

While that was happening, their time remnants were destroying everything that they could get their hands on that wasn't from this time. The planes were turned into inordinate particle clouds that disappeared soon after being phased, the large machines were destroyed as well, the remnants making sure that there wasn't any sort of wreckage that could be used for study. Everything from the blueprints to the storage devices that held them were phased into nothingness. Barry and Caitlin came out of the Wave Rider.

 **"Thank you for the help"** Diana voiced **"Now all we have to do is get rid of all the information that is in that castle"**

 **"That is being taken care of as we speak, we sent some … friends to makes sure everything disappears"** Barry responded with a smile **"So, bullet proof, huh?"** he pointed at the holes in her suit and the fact that she had no wound on her.

 **"You could say that. Who are you people anyway?"** she asked not trusting the masked faces that were in front of her.

 **"You already know who we are, Diana"** Caitlin voiced. As she spoke, Barry took off his mask and she did the same. Her transformation receding into a form the person in front of them could recognize.

 **"Ah, so ... that time with the, be weary of new colors of lightning, that was because of you two. You have the same powers as the other one did"** She replied.

 **"Yes, but as we already explained, you need to keep this quiet. The world isn't supposed to know about super powered people this early. But I suspect you already knew that, since you have a secret of your own"** Caitlin smiled at her while holding her husband's hand in hers.

 **"Do not worry about that. Thank you for all the help that you provided. I suspect I will never see you again, since if I understood correctly you two and the others travelled back in time to fix this mess"** She inquired

 **"Time is strange, we might not meet again, but if something happens and we have to return, we will. There is no certainty in saying we will be back or not. However, we do want to thank you for keeping our friends safe. We could at least buy you a new suit, but I'm afraid the money we have cannot be used here"** Barry told her

 **"I always have more than one change of clothing with me. This so called job I have been on for the past few months, let's just say I got shot at… a lot"** Diana refused their offer, it was clear this wasn't the first shooting she had gone through while being here.

 **"Well, it is time for us to go, while we might see each other again sometime in the future, or the past as the case might be, take care of yourself"** Barry offered her a hand which she shook and Caitlin did the same.

 **"Do you need a ride back to the castle?"** the question came from Caitlin who remembered that the Wave Rider was stationed quite a ways away from the village.

 **"No, I think I can handle that myself, you take care of yourselves as well"** the woman smiled and took off, flying just above the trees so as to not be seen by others.

 ** _"Now I'm convinced she might be from Krypton. Invulnerability, she can fly, now all she has left is freeze breath and heat vision"_** Barry looked at his wife while they went back to the ship to check on their child.

 **"Good job, back there. I thought our goose was cooked"** Sara thanked them while they were going back to the bridge to strap in for the trip home.

 **"You`re welcome. We were there to help, were we not?"** Caitlin looked at the others who had been healed already by Gideon and were pretty much all right.

 **"I'm glad we thought about getting you two, now, let's get back home. Hopefully nothing much has changed. Gideon, scan the timeline again will you?"** She said as they strapped in for the trip back

 **"Only minor changes have occurred, Sara, less than 0.05%"** the answer came

 **"Looks like we were able to make it in time to stop the timeline collapsing completely. A job well done if I do say so myself"** she smiled and pushed a button, the Wave rider taking off and jumping back to the time that they left. The large ship landed on the large lawn of the Vacation house, which had now reappeared. **"I suspect there would be more changes and crack, but they would not be visible to us, or we actually could run into them by accident. Who knows, but with that said, I think we deserve a break"** She got herself some beer from the ship and sat down on one of the lawn chairs taking in the sun and enjoying her drink. The two speedsters left their child back in the care of Henry and Tina and went to the labs to check if everything was in order. Much to their surprise, someone was waiting for them in the conference room. Cisco told them that the woman was adamant in meeting the two and she wouldn't take no for an answer. When they arrived and opened the door, surprise appeared on their faces.

 **"We didn't expect you to look for us? Besides that, there have been at least 67 years since we last saw you, you haven't aged a bit"** Barry smiled sitting down. Diana Prince was in the other chair looking at the two speedsters.

 **"Perks of being daughter of a god, I guess. How about you two? Age doesn't seem to faze you either"** She grinned.

 **"Daughter of a god … you still need to tell us what is that about. We initially thought you were an alien. Since we have already met people with similar powers to yours. You have to understand, from our perspective we just left that clearing where we talked at. Time did not pass for us as you would think. Nice to see you again, Diana. How did you arrive here and how did you managed to find us?"** Caitlin sat down near her husband.

 **"I came back to America after the war was over. Went on with my life, helped wherever I could. I went back to the island of the Amazons a couple of times to check in with my mother, right before I was exiled, because under their new law whoever leaves that is the punishment they receive. After a while, I heard things about STAR Labs, didn't really add to anything until I saw the conference that you held in Star City a while back, you weren't married at the time, but it was enough for me to remember two people that had helped me during the war. I started looking around and finally, when I found out where you two had your base I came straight here to Central City to talk to you. That is about everything"** She explained what had happened during the time that had passed.

 **"Well glad to see you again, Diana Prince. I'm glad that you survived the war, although with being impenetrable, another outcome would have been highly improbable"** Barry smiled and the three started to talk, hoping to get to know each other better. While in the middle of the war, they were more concerned with their lives and the lives of the others around them rather than finding out more information. This time, they had all the time they needed.


	69. Eliza

After their adventure in fixing the timeline, our speedsters were keeping track of things that might have fallen through the cracks when the timeline shifted. Until now, nothing had seemed out of the ordinary, until out of nowhere, Barry received a call from Hal Jordan. One major thing that seemed to have changed after the shift was the fact that Barry and Hal never lost contact like they did in the first timeline, they continued to talk and the speedster now remembered all the discussions they had over the years regarding their lives. While the two were best friends now, or as close to best friends as two people could be, Barry never shared his and his wife's secret identities with him. That wasn't because he didn't trust the man, but because it was a secret that the two decided to not share unless absolutely necessary. While from Hal's perspective, he had been talking with Barry and keeping in touch over all those years, from the speedsters perspective, while remembering all the discussions they had, that time apart was still there. That was not the only difference that they discovered. For some reason, Diana Prince was now chief of security at STAR West, according to Felicity doing a bang up job as well. From what they managed to gather, she applied for the job right after the renaming of STAR West and having impressive credentials and achievements, Bette had no problem in hiring the woman. The two knew that this would happen, after the discussions with Martin Stein, but until now, the modifications that occurred were only good. They were realists, they fully expected something to turn bad from their trek across time, but until now nothing of the sort reared its ugly head.

Ever since the Labs were opened, our speedster started to receive an influx of people that wanted to work there. From names they had heard who had no place to continue their research, to people that had no name for themselves yet, but were brilliant and, provided they had a lab to do their research, could do a lot of good with what they discover. The selection process was arduous, however, there were so many people that wanted to work at STAR and too few actual places in which they could work. The speedster tried to accommodate as many scientists as they could, but in the end some people did remain without a place to work.

 **"This is shit. SO many people with good ideas and we don't have space to put them all"** Barry told his wife with a bit of annoyance on his face.

 **"We don't have to hire them all here, at the moment we have places all over the country that serve different purposes. If they are willing to move then we can send them to the other locations. That is something we didn't think of at the start"** Caitlin replied while feeding Alex.

 **"You`re right. We should have Cisco and Bette work on that. However, there is a name that I want in. She should sound familiar to you"** the speedster gave his wife a dossier attached to an application form.

 **"Eliza Danvers…you`re right, that name does sound familiar to me. Could she be related to Kara or Alex?"** Caitlin realized instantly that Kara's human name was the same as the woman who wanted to work at the labs.

 **"I don't know. As you are aware there are people with the same name that have no relation to each other. I think we should call her in for an interview and see for ourselves. That is the only way we can find out more about her"** Barry smiled toward his wife who nodded

 **"Well, we do have a meeting set up with her in an hour, we should see then who she is. Besides her, did you recognize any of the names that applied for research position here?"** the question came

 **"Not really, but then I wasn't in the scientific scene for that long. Maybe I should as you that same question, you would know better"** the speedster replied.

 **"While I might have been part of the scientific community, as you well know my dear husband I was more of a recluse than someone wanting to make friends. I did indeed go to conferences and discussions on bioengineering, but was too interested in the topics and less on the people. There are names that seem to be big in that circle of which I know nothing about. So I would suggest you don't count on me when choosing people"** She chuckled and Barry remembered how she was at the start only nodding to show her that she proved her point.

The hour that they had free passed quite quickly as the two were still trying to find a way to solve Bette's fertility issue. When the time arrived, the couple moved to the meeting room where they waited patiently, but not too long for the person that had applied to show up. She did a few minutes later.

 **"Good day, Mrs. Danvers"** Barry greeted politely **"So what brings you to STAR? What is it you want to achieve here?"**

 **"Good day to you both. I will get straight to the point, since you both have the same background as I do doing bioengineering work and I assume you are quite busy managing the Labs. I have kept a close eye on some of the discoveries that have been made public over the period since you took over and I think I have managed to come up with way to improve them"** the woman said with confidence.

 **"I see, to which discoveries are you speaking about in particular?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"From the papers that the scientists in the Labs put out, I saw that you had a problem with cultivating artificial skin for the people that were wounded or burned. Something about a DNA compatibility issue and the fact that the bio skin could not be absorbed by the body after it was used"** She stated bluntly

 **"Yes, we have tried to offer our assistance on that specific project since both of us have degrees in bioengineering, but we could not focus on helping. Our work does not allow us the free time to help on all the projects we know we would be useful on, sadly"** Caitlin told the woman

 **"I figured as much, that is why I have applied. If you two had enough time to help with the projects, I think they would have been done already, but since you do have a chain of labs to run, I thought that some help in the bioengineering department would be well received"** The woman smiled at them.

 **"As luck might have had it, ever since I took over the Managing Director job for the labs, the bioengineering department has been a person short. With that said, if you do decide to work for us, do you have a place in town that you can live in?"** Caitlin inquired

 **"Yes, I have where to live. I am still searching for a rental, however, if I did not get this job for whatever reason, even lack of space, moving to Central City was not on my to do list"** The woman answered quite bluntly.

 **"Very well, Mrs. Danvers. We will get you a temporary four-month contract, call it a … test run, since we know that some people cannot integrate in larger places. If after that time you feel that you want to stay here, then we will hire you permanently. What do you say?"** Barry smiled at the person

 **"I say yes. I would very much like to work here, seeing what you are trying to do for the people"** She offered her a hand and Barry took it. However, the moment he did, his head started hurting. Caitlin knew what that meant. **"I'm sorry, what did I do? What is happening to Mr. Allen?"** she inquired quite scared.

 **"Wait a minute, everything will come back to normal, but we might have other things we want to ask"** Caitlin assured her that it wasn't her fault, but that she shouldn't leave just yet.

Barry started to recall some of his older self's memories, with the added migraine and nose bleeds that came with it. He saw the first day that Kara took him to meet Eliza, and remembered what they talked about every discussion after that. The way that Jeremiah had to work for the DEO in order for Hank to not take Kara away, the deal they made with Superman in keeping his cousin safe, the sacrifices that her husband had to make in order to keep that dead.

He remembered the discussion about how Alex was keeping her sexuality hidden and the fact that Eliza already knew about it, but never said anything to her letting her come out on her own terms. The struggles that they had with teaching Kara to control her powers, since Kal had not been around having his own life. The fact that she missed her husband dearly ever since he had disappeared that day he went on mission and her utter disdain in working for the government in any kind of branch that responded directly to them.

All the data that he received confirmed once and for all that the person who he had just shook hands with was indeed Kara's adoptive mother. The one that the alien hadn't seen in quite a while and which she would always wonder if she would come back.

 ** _"What did you see?"_** Caitlin asked him out right

 ** _"I was right. She is Kara's adoptive mother. I just had a rush of memories, which showed me exactly who she is. The flashes wouldn't have triggered if she was someone else"_** Barry responded to her, trying to recover his bearings and wiping his nose.

 **"Does this …. Happen often? I know you two are bio engineers, but this looks like a real problem to me"** the woman tried to offer an opinion

 **"No it doesn't, thank you for your concern. This only happens in a particular case, which we will be happy to share with you… after you respond to this question. It's been a while since you have seen your daughters, hasn't it?"** Barry asked with a convinced voice, leaving the woman in front of him with her face on the floor.

 **"How do you know about them? I have made sure that in any of my resumes I didn't mention anything about family"** the woman replied with a scared voice.

 **"Probably because Kara is like family to us and Alex is a good friend. That's why"** Caitlin responded with a smile **"I assume you had a good reason to stay away from them, considering they are still wondering where you are and if you are all right?"**

 **"I…wanted to stay away. If you indeed say that Kara is like family to you, then you must know what happened to Jeremiah, my husband"** Eliza replied with a cold voice.

 **"Yes, we know he disappeared. We also know he is alive"** Barry replied leaving the woman with a surprised face, which turned into a look of her having seen a ghost. **"If you`re trying to hide the fact that Kara is "special", don't. We know all about her and her cousin. Heck, we even made her a suit specifically for her physiology and we introduced her to her boyfriend"**

 **"Wait, but… that would mean that you two"** The wheels in her head started to click, Kara would not have trust in most people to share the secret she had, unless those people were like her. She remembered what she had read across the years and the fact that two speedsters appeared in Central City after the particle accelerator explosion. In reading about STAR Labs, she came across conspiracies that the superheroes actually used it for their base **"I know Kara, she wouldn't share her secret so readily, which means either you two are extremely trustworthy people, or you two are like her"**

 **"Well, we aren't from another planet, if that's what you`re implying, but … you are correct. We aren't quite normal either"** Barry grinned at her. Caitlin smiled and with a thought her form changed, leaving on the table a rose made of ice for the woman that was now stunned at her appearance change. Immediately after, her form returned to normal.

 **"You two, you`re the speedsters that have been protecting Central City for a while now. I recognize the form you just took from one of the pictures in the paper"** She realized what they said earlier and continued **"Wait, you know Kara is an alien and you have nothing against that?"**

 **"Eliza, we aren't like most people. We do know of Kara and Kal's heritage"** the woman made large eyes when the people used Superman's Kryptonian name **"And we don't care that they are aliens. Hell, we even had Kara be a bridesmaid at our wedding. Since at the time she didn't really have a boyfriend, she brought Kal along as well"**

 **"I see. So, you are indeed their friends. This is starting to make more and more sense. Also the fact that you don't really have much time to help the scientists with their research becomes more apparent when taking into account the fact that you have to protect the city as well"** the woman smiled at them still shocked about she was hearing **"So …. What happened with the bleeding and … If I'm not being too intrusive, what's this about Kara having a boyfriend?"**

 **"Are you sure you want to know? In other circumstances we would just tell you to go talk to her, but since we think you have good reasons to stay away, we can share what we know with you. Disclaimer, he was her boyfriend until about a few months ago, now they are engaged to be married"** Caitlin chuckled leaving Eliza with her face on the floor once again.

 **"Yes, I do want to know, or else I wouldn't have asked. Tell me, I want to know what happened"** She replied.

 **"Hold on to your hat them, because this story, while true, is nothing normal. I suppose you didn't know this, but before a certain event, you, Kara and Kal were in a different universe. If you remember those storms a while back, that was the moment when our universe and Kara's merged"** Barry started

 **"I see, so the multiverse theory is correct. But how did you manage to cross universes?"** she inquired

 **"Due to our speed. It enables us to cross dimensions and go back in time if needed. Also, Cisco, our friend can create portals that link different universes together. The first time we met Kara was back before Non attacked. We jumped by accident to that universe while testing our speed. Later, we came back to help with Non, seeing that she was in trouble"** the speedster continued

 **"While that happened, I noticed that Kara had developed quite a crush on my husband. I looked away, since she wasn't hurting anyone, but her feeling were pretty obvious"** Caitlin started

 **"Oh, I'm sorry. I hope she didn't cause any troubles for you two"** Eliza gave the standard motherly answer.

 **"Not at all. She was very civil about it, even if she had the feelings she had. That's why we invited her to our wedding. She helped us with a problem we had, we helped with a problem she had. We became friends, and later on, we began regarding her as family. After a while … we met an older version of my husband, he had travelled back in time to change some things that had gone completely haywire in his timeline. Don't ask, it will give you a headache"** Caitlin continued.

 **"That version of me, lost the woman he loved, managed to get over that loss and in turn fell in love with his Kara. The one that was in that timeline. So … after some deliberation, we sent him to her universe. The two became very close as we had hoped up to where they decided to get married. As far as we know, they are living together and they are very happy"** Barry smiled to the person in front of him

 **"You two … your lives are strange. Even stranger than what I had with Kara being an alien. So, what I understood from your story is that the moment I go to see Kara, her fiancée is actually another Barry Allen from another time, which is older. Is that correct?"** Eliza asked with a surprised face.

 **"Yes, that is correct. Not the man she had a crush on, but still that man. If it makes any sense to you"** Barry tried to explain as best he could.

 **"You were right, that is stranger than fiction. What about the whole bleeding thing? Is that normal?"** the bioengineer asked bluntly

 **"When we were struck by lightning, it was because my older self was there. He got caught in the tail end of that shock, some of the memories he had from his timeline got transferred to me. Those memories come to me as flashes and always have triggers. You were that trigger now, Eliza. I saw in a few moments all the times that my older self has talked to you in his timeline. All the things you told him, about how Kal asked you to take care of her, about Jeremiah's sacrifices to keep that promise, about all the trouble you had in teaching her to control her powers and everything in between. That is how I knew you were Kara's adoptive mother"** the speedster further explained what had happened.

 **"I see. That is why you were able to recognize me that fast, even if you two have never actually met me. You know of me only from what Kara had told you. What happened after that? You did say you were in different universes?"** the woman wanted to know more.

 **"After some things happened, a portal between our two universes stayed open. Created by someone who had Cisco's powers. That portal merged the two universes which became one. That is why you are able to come here now. In that universe, Central City didn't have a STAR Labs. But I'm betting on the fact that you don't remember that. Ever since then, we have helped Kara and her Barry as well as we could, them helping us whenever we needed it. That's why we said they are family. Kara because she became part of it, my husband's older self is still my husband which means he is family anyway. And our alien blonde will be part of the Allen family soon enough, although we still don't know if they had decided when they are getting married"** Caitlin concluded the explanation as eloquently and simply as she could.

 **"I had no idea that staying apart for a few years would result in me missing such important parts in Kara's life"** Eliza seemed very upset with herself

 **"Well, you know when you'll be ready we can take you to see them. We can reach National City in under 3 minutes so, that is not really a problem"** Barry smiled at the woman in front of him, who initially had a shocked look on her face, then realized who she was actually speaking to.

 **"Maybe it is time to go back into her life, but not right now. I need to process all the information you've shared with me. There is another thing that you have mentioned. You said Jeremiah is still alive. How can that be? He has been missing for at least 15 years. We always thought he was dead"** the woman asked surprised.

 **"That all started a few months ago when we have gotten a request from Kara to monitor Central City. Someone that looked like Jeremiah had shown up in National and after that in Metropolis. It was like he was going places that he knew there would be someone to see him in. He was here in Central City as well. We saw him, which means he is still alive. Kara and Alex think he is a clone, but that is all the information we have on the subject. In order to find out more, you would have to talk to the two sisters"** Caitlin added

 **"I see, thank you. When I am ready to return, I will ask. Also, can you … keep me in the loop if there is anything Kara says about him? I would appreciate it"** Eliza voiced

 **"Yes, of course"** Barry started to speak only to be interrupted by a voice from the internal comm system.

 **"Barry, Caitlin. You are needed in the Cortex. We have a problem"** the engineer called them to their meeting place.

 **"We're on our way. We're bringing a guest too"** Caitlin replied. Before Eliza could blink the setting changed and she was in the cortex with the two speedsters.

" **So, who is our guest? I assume someone trustworthy, because you two don't just blab your identities to the first scientist that comes through the door"** Cisco chuckled.

 **"This is Eliza Danvers. Kara's adoptive mother. Eliza, this is Francisco Ramon, Cisco for short. He is one of the Executive Directors here at the labs, a whiz kid at engineering and all around suit master, since I suppose you saw that Kara changes suits over the last period. He was the one that made those and ours and the woman next to him is his girlfriend, Bette San Souci, our security chief"** Caitlin made introductions all around. Eliza went and shook hands with everyone before returning next to Barry, which was looking strangely at the engineer, not knowing why they were summoned.

 **"Wait OUR Kara's adoptive mother? The one she was looking for, but never knew what happened to her after Jeremiah disappeared?"** the engineer said with a surprised voice.

 **"Yep. That's the one"** Barry replied. Eliza was stunned by the way the engineer worded his question. She knew that most people had an aversion to aliens, so much so that they would try to find ways to kill them or simply get rid of them. This group of people however regarded Kara as family, so much so that the man in front of her would call her theirs. It was obvious that they cared about her very much. This in itself gave her a feeling of happiness, her adopted alien daughter, who she always feared that would be alone and without people that would care about her because of her alien nature, had a group of friends, no … had a family that cared about her, loved her and wanted her around, even knowing her heritage.

 **"That's wonderful. We should tell her who we found" Cisco** interjected

 **"No, Eliza had reasons to stay away from Kara. You two will not say anything to her until our good doctor here is ready and willing to go meet her daughter"** Caitlin voice and the two people understood.

 **"Won't that give Kara a reason to be mad at us? I mean we have a person that she has spent the last three years looking for. If that isn't a reason to get her pissed off at us, I don't know what is"** Bette replied from the other side of the Cortex.

 **"Just blame me for it. I wanted and still want for now to stay hidden. I will come back to my daughters when I feel the time is right for it. I think she has blamed me for more things than I can think of, one more will not change the size of the pile. But I do request that you do not say anything to Kara"** Eliza told them with a stern voice. The engineer and his girlfriend understanding that she had reasons to keep her location a secret.

 **"As you wish. We won't tell her anything. I just don't want her to get hurt. That's all"** Cisco voiced, with the other three people agreeing to his words. Eliza then knew how much the people in this small circle of friends actually cared about her daughter, so much so that she wanted to cry. She held it back however continuing to speak

 **"So, this is your command center. Must be an area that is off limits to most people, since I have never heard mentioned about "the Cortex" in any of the discussions I've had with people that are working here"**

 **"This is an area only a few select people have access to. Mostly the ones that know our secret. So yes, you could call it our command center. Bette, if you don't mind, make a security profile for Eliza when you have time so she can get into this area and the area she will be working in. She will be working here from tomorrow onward"** Barry told the security chief who nodded. **"Ok Cisco, tell us what you have"**

 **"Remember after our encounter with the Durlans we made that detector to pick up whenever one of them would change form. Some time ago, when that strange shimmering happened and with everything that related to it, said detector went down. I spent some time to get it back up again and … here is what I found"** Cisco pointed at the monitor. The two speedsters gawked at the screen.

 ** _"Holy shit. Is it just me or the number of dots increased considerably from the last time this was activated?"_** Barry asked his wife.

 ** _"No, you`re right. By almost a factor of 10. This has to be one of those temporal backlashes, else it wouldn't make any sense why in less than a few weeks the number of signals all across the world has risen to such an amount"_** Caitlin replied looking at the screen.

 ** _"Either that … or there is a portal somewhere on earth that is transporting Durlans to our planet. And if it's transporting Durlans …"_** The speedster didn't manage to finish his sentence.

 ** _"Then they are more than likely transporting Dominators as well. This could be a real problem"_** Caitlin told him.

 **"You would think that what you showed us here would not have been such a problem to leave two superheroes speechless"** Eliza joked.

 **"Oh, they aren't speechless. The lightning that hit them both gave them a telepathic link. They are more than likely talking in their heads. Don't worry, it's a common occurrence with these two, you will get used to it while you`re here. Sometimes you need to remind them that they have to speak out loud for all of us"** Bette interjected, leaving Eliza yet again with a shocked look on her face **"Hey, you two, mind sharing with the group what you're thinking?"** she turned to the two speedsters that were looking at the monitors. Her voice took the two out of their discussion

 **"The number of Durlans that our system is detecting right now increased tenfold from the last scan we did. They all seemed to be focused on this particular area. Cisco, can you find out what's there?"** Caitlin asked pointing to a point on the map where there were a lot of dots clumped together. The engineer nodded and started to pull up satellite pictures of the area.

 **"This is strange, the military satellites don't have any record of that place. Our satellites however show it to be quite a big military facility"** the pictures he pulled showed large amounts of troops that were guarding something that looked like an entrance to a facility, also to the side there was something that looked like a runway. The weird thing about is that there was no hangar that would hold planes landing there.

 **"I see, so a secure location that looks like a military base, which is not present on any government plans, the military satellites don't show it and it has a high concentration of shapeshifter signatures. Does that sound like a hidden alien base to anyone?"** Barry voiced his thoughts.

 **"That is what it looks like. Keep an eye on it, Cisco. Monitor their energy levels if you can, see if they might have some sort of transport device there. Also, see if there are any sort of signals going into that area, if you find any … sort them by how far from the earth the origin point is. We might have visitors in our solar system which we know nothing about"** Caitlin replied.

 **"Will do. Let you know if anything changes. Welcome to STAR Labs, Dr. Danvers"** Cisco smiled to the woman that was now heading with the Allens out of the Cortex.

 **"Glad to be here, Cisco. You all can call me Eliza. Any friends and family of my daughter is a friend of mine"** She smiled. The three went to a bioengineering lab which would be the place where she worked.

 **"Eliza, we would ask something of you, since you`re coming to work for us"** Caitlin looked at the woman in front of her.

 **"Sure, what do you need?"** the answer came almost instantly

 **"Can you put our ideas down on something and … work on another project?"** Barry asked, realizing where Caitlin was going and what she wanted to ask.

 **"I guess so. What project are we talking about?"** Eliza inquired being really interested

 **"Well, the same incident that gave us our powers also gave Bette hers. The problem is … it also turned her infertile. Cisco and her want to have children, even if they aren't married, but that little … detail has been cause for a lot of heartache in that couple. We have been working on this problem in our off time, but as you can imagine, we don't have much of that. Between the city saving, managing the labs and taking care of our son, some things have taken a back seat to everything. We would ask you to continue that research until you come up with something. Also as you might imagine there are not a lot of people that know that every person in the upper echelon of management at STAR Labs has superpowers, which means we couldn't entrust just anyone with this project, because it would have led to a lot of … uncomfortable questions"** Barry explained to her what they wanted.

 **"Of course, if you refuse it doesn't mean we will fire you or anything. It just means we will continue to work in our free time, but that means it will take way longer than someone working on this every day they come into work. It was a promise we made the two and we want to see it thought. Those two deserve some happiness of their own after what happened when they found out"** Caitlin continued Barry's thoughts. The woman looked at them thoroughly surprised. She knew that the Allens were billionaires, now she had found out not only that, but they were Flash and Frost too and they had a son. Besides all that, they were still trying to help their friends, that in itself was amazing to her. She had known rich people in her life and these two were nothing like the others. Money didn't seem to change them at all and the way they were as persons told her even more about how Kara could have been part of their family.

 **"No, I'm definitely not refusing. You have helped Kara more than I ever could during these years that I was away. I will be glad to help with anything I can if it means rendering assistance to someone who was there for my daughter when I could not. Show me the research, since I don't think I'll be going home anytime soon, I'd like to get myself acquainted with the problem and what you have tried to do to solve it"** She said instantly with a large smile on her face.

 **"Grab a lab coat then. We have a lot to show you"** Barry pulled up a chair and started to pull up the information on the console that was in the room. The speedster couple spent the better part of the rest of the day putting Eliza up to speed with what they had already researched and what they had tried to do in solving Bette's problem. Little Alex made a few appearances, since he had to be fed, but much to Eliza's surprise, he was a model baby, She could continue going over the research with Barry even with him in the room. It was a strange feeling for her, she was happy, after all these years missing Jeremiah she was, once again happy, knowing that her daughters were fine and she was doing something useful to help some of her friends.


	70. Sight

The couple woke up like any other day doing their morning routine lazily more than anything. It was one of the rare days where they didn't have to fight off a villain, or they had something happening at the labs. They fed Alex and thought it appropriate to take him out for a stroll. Before doing that however, they checked for alerts or issues from the computers in the main office of their home. Everything seemed to be quiet enough, so they left.

They decided to just walk around the city with a baby stroller, simply because they always liked spending time with their son and they wanted to enjoy this day off as any other couple that had a child would.

 **"This is sure one nice day, isn't it. I'm glad that we still get breaks like this now and again"** Barry looked at his wife who was walking next to him.

 **"Now why did you have to say that, you jinxed everything"** She looked at him with a pout

 **"I didn't jinx anything, I was just saying how much I enjoy the downtime with my beautiful wife and our son. Where's the jinx in that?"** the speedster started to chuckle. Sure enough, only half an hour passed before they received a call.

 **"Guys, we have a problem. It seems that Mick and Lenny are at it again"** Cisco told them through the line.

 **"Wait, You mean Cold and Heatwave? I thought we had a deal with Cold, now he's just trying to go back on that agreement? That doesn't sound like him at all"** Barry voiced.

 **"I know, from what you`ve told me the man has some honor, which is why I'm surprised. Come back to STAR, I'll take care of Alex while you two are gone"** The engineer told them flat out so they wouldn't worry about the little guy. The couple ducked into an alley, Barry picked up the stroller, Caitlin picked up the baby and they were back at the labs in the span of a few seconds.

 **"OK, where are they?"** She asked.

 **"Central City Bank. They have hostages. Or at least that's what the police are saying, the feeds in the bank seem to have been taken offline so I cannot confirm or deny that allegation"** Cisco replied trying to see if there was another way to get eyes on the inside of the bank.

The two speedsters were out the door instantly, flashing over to the bank. Captain Singh was there with the police force. They wanted a status update so they went straight to him. That wasn't much of an issue since he already knew who they were.

 **"Good morning, Captain. What happened? We heard that Cold has hostages in there?"** Barry inquired flat out as the two popped in.

 **"That was just the media, we have seen what look like people in the windows, but at the moment our snipers cannot confirm if there are actual hostages. What we do know is that about an hour ago, Cold and Heatwave entered the building and from then on we have had nothing. Witnesses report that some people have indeed exited the building in their underwear, but we have nothing on the two people's reasons"** David gave them most of the information they had. The rest of the detectives weren't even surprised to see him chat with the two superheroes. In times like this, they knew that Singh would try to help as much as possible so that people would not be hurt.

 **"I see. SO what you`re telling us is that, Cold might be alone in there with Heatwave and not have any hostages at all"** Frost voiced her thoughts

 **"That might very well be a possibility"** the captain acknowledged.

 ** _"If I would say anything at all, knowing how Cold operates, I think this is actually a bait and switch to get us here. I know that he wouldn't be caught dead more than 5 minutes at a heist. Whatever else bad I can say about him, he is a thief and he is brilliant at it"_** Barry spoke to her mentally

 ** _"I know. That is something that is puzzling me as well. Cold wouldn't be caught dead after 30 minutes in one of his heists. Something is off here, either he wanted to talk to us, or this is a trap"_** Caitlin spoke her mind.

 ** _"That would seem quite strange, he does know who I am, why not show up at the Labs for a little chat. This charade seems meaningless when you count for the fact that he knows I'm Barry Allen"_** The speedster made a very interesting point.

 ** _"If we account for the way Cold behaves, the honor he has and the fact that Mick doesn't know who you are. This might be a ruse to get us to talk, without revealing your identity"_** Caitlin replied

 ** _"Cait, we have been adventuring with the legends. Mick for sure knows who we are, this doesn't really make any sense, besides, Those two were supposed to be gone playing Time cop. What's the big deal of them coming back and robbing banks?"_** Barry was rubbing the back of his head. Something didn't add up. Mick and Lenny were on the Wave Rider, and they had been there for a while, helping Sara with her missions. Them being here made absolutely no sense.

 ** _"Barry, you do forget that our time cops have down times. Sara already knows they are criminals. I don't know what to tell you, we have to go in and see"_** She replied and the two simply sped at the door, phasing through it and stopping in the large reception area where the two rogues were patiently waiting. Most of the tellers money drawers were already empty, the vault in the back had its door completely melted and from what they could manage to see in their fast recon of the area was that almost all the money Central City bank held was gone. Their scouting also revealed something that could only be classified as dummies, dressed in clothes. It was obvious to them now why some people only came out in their underwear, the two had planned for the police to see the silhouettes and assume they still had more hostages. This was looking more and more like something the brilliant Cold would come up with.

 **"We've been waiting for you"** they could hear Snart speak

 **"Lenny, what the hell are you doing? Weren't you supposed to be helping Sara keep the timeline safe?"** Barry looked at the figure that was speaking.

 **"That time has come and gone"** the man took off his hood and his goggles and they could see the face in front of them was different. He was older, a few grey hairs had appeared and his face had changed. He had a large scar near his left ear and his eyes seemed empty.

 **"Come on. Let's torch them"** Mick responded from the side and started to fire at the two speedsters. The attack took them by surprise completely, the jet of fire hitting Barry in the face. Leaving him on the ground. He could have easily dodged it, except he was keeping an eye on the cold gun, that proved to be a tactical mistake. Caitlin instantly covered him with a cloud of healing fog and went straight for Mick hitting him so hard that he flew into a wall unconscious.

 **"You want to try your gun on me, Lenny?"** Caitlin hissed at him preparing a few dozen ice spikes in case he tried. Surprising even her, the man let the gun fall and smiled.

 **"Why would I? I know that it doesn't work on you, Maiden of Ice. Besides that was not the purpose of this small charade"** He looked at Barry who was on the floor **"That was"** He smiled and sat down. This was the first time, Caitlin managed to see him so lifeless. It was like he didn't care at all what happened to him. She instantly sped the two in cells down in the pipeline taking their guns to Cisco and Barry into the medical bay. His life signs were good, the healing fog managed to mitigate the fire damage on his face, but his mask was completely torched. Caitlin had to cut it off and let his face regenerate, leaving him in another cloud of healing fog. An hour later, Barry managed to wake up, the constant infusion of Speed force energy having regenerated the damage that the heat gun had provoked to the tissues on his face.

 **"Hey Cait"** he said from the bed. **"Was I out long?"**

 **"No, just about an hour. How do you feel?"** she asked instantly

 **"Everything seems to be good, except … I can't see"** He replied giving her a smile. She helped him up and put him in front of a device. She wanted to see how bad the damage that was done to his eyes was.

 **"Everything seems to be in order, however, there is scarring on your retina and on your corneas. They are preventing any sort of light from coming in. Until that scarring clears itself, I'm afraid you're as blind as a bat"** She told him.

 **"If this is any indication, the last time I was blind it only took a few hours for it to clear. Do you have any idea how long this will last?"** the speedster asked his wife.

 **"No, I do not. Last time you had minor injuries and scarring to your retinas. Now, you also have corneal scarring and the damage is more extensive than it was before. I do think your eyesight will come back, but I cannot even begin to project a timeframe in which that will happen"** the reply came. Barry could not see the annoyance on her face, but he felt it coming straight from her.

 **"Where's Lenny? I need to talk to him"** Barry asked.

 **"He is in the pipeline along with Mick. While he was the one who hurt you with the heat gun, Cold didn't even fire his. The moment you were down he literally gave up. Put his gun away and sat down waiting for me to take him to prison"** Caitlin told him.

 **"That seems very uncharacteristic of him, doesn't it?"** the speedster came to the same conclusion his wife had a while before.

 **"Very much so. Can you move?"** She inquired seeing him standing up, but confused.

 **"I can yes, but I'm going to need you to help me so I don't go bumping into walls. Before we go talk to him, can you do me a favor?"** Barry had something on his mind

 **"Sure, what do you need me to do?"** His wife answered swiftly

 **"Give Sara a call, I want to know if Lenny is still on the ship. The way this one looked doesn't seem to be the one we met back when we went in time to prevent our younger selves to be killed"** he told her and she knew exactly where that request was coming from. She left Barry to lie down and went to the console to call Sarah through the PDA device that she left behind. She came back after a few minutes.

 **"You won't guess who answered my call"** the expression on her face said everything, but Barry couldn't see it.

 **"I'll take a wild guess and say Lenny was the one. Did I guess right?"** the question came.

 **"Indeed. How did you know?"** her answer didn't really seem to surprise him at all.

 **"I didn't. But I had a suspicion. The way this Cold looks like is the way Menace compared to me when we met him. Come on, we need to go talk to him, find out what the hell is really going on"** he replied. Caitlin grabbed his hand and in a few seconds they were back down into the pipeline facing Cold's cell. The man was just sitting there looking at the walls. Barry was keeping his eyes closed, it was almost too obvious that he couldn't see. Caitlin didn't even bother keeping her suit on.

 **"Hello again, Lenny. Or should I say, Future Lenny?"** Barry spoke to the cell actually getting a reaction from the man inside.

 **"I see you`re as sharp as usual, Barry. Even without your eyesight. Hello Caitlin, you`re as cold as ever"** the man spoke, Caitlin swore she saw a smile on his face.

 **"Considering we already talked to Sara and Lenny is still on her ship, there was only one way you could be here. So, mind telling us why you did all this? You know we won't let you out of here anytime soon"** Caitlin replied.

 **"I don't expect you too. I more than likely expected Sara to come and stop me and Mick. Because what we have done will more than likely cause a time quake that the Wave Rider will be able to detect. But seeing that I'm already here, I'm guessing she decided to leave everything to you"** the man spoke, but his eyes continued to be empty.

 **"But why would you try willingly to change the timeline, knowing that if we didn't catch you, Sara would have. You plan way too much in advance to take such a stupid risk"** Caitlin spoke her thoughts. Cold didn't want to answer, but it only took Barry a little while to figure it out.

 **"The answer is simple, Cait. He wouldn't be that stupid, unless it was for someone he loved. The only person that goes into that category is his sister. Spit it out Lenny, what happened to Lisa?"** Barry said with a demanding voice.

 **"Am I that easy to read?"** Cold stood up looking at both of them. For a few seconds, Barry had a clear image of the man that was in the cell. The way he looked and what his demeanor was, but it wasn't like he saw him, the point of view was all wrong.

 **"Yes, you care about yourself and you love your sister. If you planned for being caught, that means the only other reason would be for Lisa. Like I said, spit it out. What happened to her?"** Barry continued.

 **"Five years ago, Lisa died of a brain tumor. We caught it late, it was inoperable. The gold gun that Cisco made for her had some adverse effects. What we didn't know at the time was the moment that thing turned something or someone into gold, the object or person would give out a radiation pulse that would disperse quite fast. The problem with that was, Lisa was always around when the gun was fired. Late we found out that she had radiation poisoning, the mild kind, not enough to kill her, but enough to give her cancer"** Snart started to talk, the couple could see that the words coming from his mouth were hard to let out. It was clear as day how hard it was for him to remember all of this.

 **"So she died because of the gold gun and because of your own… negligence. Is that it?"** Caitlin hit the nail on the head.

 **"Yes, I was too busy doing jobs with her and Mick to notice the symptoms. At first, she became weak, then she started coughing out blood. Her hair started to fall out. She never told me, damn her. But I should have noticed"** He continued sitting down.

 **"You couldn't just call Sara and tell her to take you back. You know she wouldn't agree"** Caitlin realized that Sara would never have let the two create their own time aberration.

 **"No, we couldn't. We had to wait. At first, working with the others I knew that creating a time aberration could tear the timeline apart, but as time went by, I stopped caring about the implications. I just wanted my sister back. So one day, me and Mick found the wave rider during one of its usual pit stops for R &R, we sneaked across the ship and we stole the jumper to come back here. Still surprised Gideon didn't lock us out of the ship controls, or that Sara didn't come after us"** Snart continued his explanation.

 **"I'm guessing the bank robbery was to get enough money to get her treatment. Why the attack on us?"** Barry asked quite bluntly.

 **"I've made a deal with someone to take care of Lisa's treatments and recovery. The only caveat for that was, they wanted me to find some way of keeping the Flash out of their hair. You being blind right now qualifies as that. I didn't really want to kill you, although I could. You two have grown on me ever since our first meeting. I still have shoulder aches at night because of those ice spikes you threw at me, Frost"** Cold smiled toward Caitlin.

 **"That's what you get for trying to kill my husband. It's not anything you wouldn't do if someone tried to kill Lisa"** Caitlin voiced

 **"Yes, indeed. However, I would kill them on the spot. You only hurt me"** he smiled.

 **"You know what, Lenny? Sometimes as smart as you are, you`re dumb as a rock. You could have come to us and asked for our help, without playing this charade"** Barry sounded a bit annoyed.

 **"Everything I have done has a reason. While not apparent, this should happen this way. I know much more about the future than I am letting on, but I also know what can happen if I do tell you anything else. Trust me when I say, this had to run its course the way it did"** the man smiled **"Even if it meant I would have to spend my whole life in the confines of a cell"**

Barry and Caitlin were completely shocked by the man's candor. It was clear he knew much more and that the plan he made had a different agenda, however at this time nothing was clear to them. Snart didn't give them any sort of additional information, they were stuck so they decided to let him think it over, even though they both doubted they would get more information from him. The two sped back into the cortex, where Cisco had come back to work on something related to the advanced computer chips line that they were producing. The gust of wind they produced ruffled a lot or papers sending them to the ground. Caitlin wasted no time in putting them back where they were originally. While that happened, Barry who had is eyes closed, started to get glimpses of vision. It was clear that they weren't his.

 ** _"Cait, something strange is happening to me_ "** He managed to articulate. He focused and a cohesive picture appeared in his mind. He saw himself, his face with his eyes closed not talking and looking in a fixed point. Something that was normal for a person without sight.

 ** _"What do you mean? Are you all right?"_** He could feel the instant worry that sentence had produced in the woman he loved.

 ** _"I am fine, but … for some reason I seem to be able to see"_** He replied.

 ** _"That's good right? I mean your eyes must be healing if you`re starting to get your eyesight back"_** she reasoned with him.

 ** _"Not what I meant"_** the image disappeared from his mind the moment he opened his eyes, but everything was still black. The moment he closed his eyes again, the image came back. Clear as day **_"What I'm seeing isn't what I'm supposed to see"_** the image changed, he saw Cisco working at the desk **_"For example, right now I'm seeing Cisco. I'm pretty sure I can't see him, I'm with my back to him and I'm still blind. Also make sure he doesn't spill his coffee on the papers you managed to gather from the floor. Its dangerously close to them_ "** Caitlin was stunned. Barry described in detail what she was seeing. Including the fact that the coffee mug was too close to the papers.

 ** _"Barry, what do you see now?"_** She asked, flashing to the Gideon room and looking at Alex sleeping.

 ** _"I see our child sleeping. Look at that smile. I do believe he's drooling though"_** the speedster had himself a smile on his face.

 ** _"That settles it. What you`re seeing is my sight. I just flashed to the Gideon room to check on Alex. You`re still in the Cortex"_** Caitlin flashed back and he could see himself in the same spot that his wife let him **_"That is a bit creepy. I mean sure, I have no problem you seeing through my eyes, I don't have anything to hide, but it's strange because I don't even know if you`re doing it or not. Do you know how to trigger this new … ability?"_** She asked

 ** _"No, I don't. The images aren't constant either. Sometimes It's clear as day, sometimes I don't manage to make out anything. I don't know what to tell you, Cait. I have noticed one thing, if I have my eyes open, even if I cannot see. The images disappear. You should try it"_** Barry urged his wife.

 ** _"Barry, you`re blind. Even if I do try it, I'm pretty sure I won't be able to see anything. If this is indeed not a fluke, but it is something that we have discovered now, then we will have to learn to use it when both of us can see. However, for now, as long as you can see through my eyes, try to keep the image up as much as you can. It will help you get around, even though it's not your own sight"_** She went to a mirror and smiled. Barry was greeted by her beautiful face with a large smile, something that he was not used to seeing from her own point of view.

 ** _"You`re beautiful, you do know that, right?"_** he quipped

 ** _"You tell me that every day. I should know it by now"_** She responded. The two decided to take a walk around the lab, to see if Barry could handle seeing the world through another person's eyes. Much to his dismay, while walking, even seeing everything clearly, he still bumped quite hard into a pole.

 ** _"You all right?"_** the question came immediately.

 ** _"God damn it. I need to forget the fact that I'm not seeing through my own eyes. Yea I'm fine, just a bit of a bump on my forehead"_** he gave his answer quite annoyed. The went back inside the building to make sure that their child was still asleep, having quite a nice surprise finding Felicity and Oliver in the cortex chatting with Cisco.

 **"Ollie, welcome. What brings you to Central City?"** Barry asked. He extended his hand but the archer noticed that it was all wrong.

 **"Do I have to have a reason to come and see my god son?"** he stopped for a minute and then asked quite bluntly "Why are you blind?"

 **"We had a run in with some old friends. Barry took a blast to the face. While the damage regenerated, his eyes are still scarred. It will pass, but we don't know in how much time that will happen"** Caitlin replied in his stead. The archer kept following his moves, his trained eye noticing that Barry had to have at least some sort of sight, or he wouldn't be able to navigate the Cortex as well as he did. The problem was he seemed to bump into things the same time that Caitlin was not looking at the place he was in. He dragged him aside.

 **"What aren't you telling me? If you were blind as a bat you wouldn't be able to avoid everything in the cortex. You are walking around almost like you can see, except with your eyes closed"** the archer started to question the speedster.

 **"After this happened, I seem to be able to see through Caitlin's eyes. I can see whatever she sees, except I cannot pinpoint where she is at all times, making it hard for me to process a composite image of the space I am in. When that happens, I still bump into things, or run over things. I walked into a pole earlier today because I saw clearly in front of me and there was nothing, however I had a pole in front of me"** Barry said in a whispered voice.

 **"Come on. Let's get Caitlin and go down to the training room. We have some sparring to do"** Oliver said quite seriously

 **"Ollie, didn't you hear me? I'm blind. How can I spar with you? You'd kick my ass so fast that I wouldn't even be able to react"** Barry tried to whine a bit and remind the archer that he was still blind.

 **"Doesn't matter. I have something in mind. Come on. Stop whining and tell your wife to join us in the training room"** Oliver started to walk toward the elevator with Barry right behind him.

 ** _"Cait, come to the training room. Oliver seems to want to spar with me while I'm blind and I don't know why. He asked that you join us"_** Barry relayed the archers request to his wife who came to them a few seconds later.

 **"Ok, Oliver. What is this about?"** Caitlin asked while the two were getting ready to spar.

 **"Patience, Caitlin. I'm trying to see if Barry can accommodate to his sightless state. Or even use your vision to his advantage"** The archer stated

 **"You told him about that?"** she asked the speedster

 **"Yes. Well to be fair he figured out something was different, from the fact that while you were looking my way, I seemed to be completely able to see and when you looked away, I started to bump into things"** he responded. They started sparring and the first punch Oliver threw hit Barry squarely in the face. The archer noticed that Caitlin was watching them.

 **"What was that, Barry?"** he asked quite surprised **"Why didn't you dodge? Caitlin is looking right at us"**

 **"Oliver, this is new even for me. I don't know how to pinpoint where Caitlin is to be able to see which angle she sees from and then adjust that to use it against you. That is simply not possible at this point"** Barry sounded like he was completely pissed off by the way the archer was trying to train him.

 **"Barry, are you an idiot? You have Menace's memories. he knows the fighting style of the assassins and I know you picked that up as well. I have seen you fight at full strength with an alien from another world that could slap me once and break my head off my shoulders. Why the hell do you even need eyes? You have FOUR OTHER SENSES to pinpoint Caitlin's location, then use HER eyes to see yourself. You airhead"** Oliver made a fine point. **"I know for a fact that your mind works faster than your legs. Use it"** Barry saw the wisdom in the archer's words.

 **"Cait, mind walking around for a bit? Try throwing some ice spikes at me. Don't worry if I get hurt, you can heal me. I want to see if I'm able to establish your location"** Barry spoke to his wife.

 **"All right, but I'm going to throw them over your head. Catch them if you can. I don't want to skewer you"** She replied starting to walk around the compound. Barry opened his eyes, he wanted the vision to be black so he could focus on the sounds and the air around him. The first few icicles went completely over his head, him turning but not being able to pinpoint anything. The more he managed to single out the footsteps the better his orientation became. After about an hour he could consistently catch the spikes out of the air.

 **"OK, Cait try running now. And by that I do mean speeding"** She nodded and started to flash around creating a large circle of blue silver lightning while she was doing that. Again, it took him a while to get a fix from where the attacks came from, but Oliver was right. Using his senses and the training that he had inherited, for lack of a better word, from his older self, the attacks started to get caught with more and more consistency.

 **"I see you`re getting the hang of it now. Good. Now try it with me and Caitlin as well. I'll be shooting arrows at you as I move. I know you are fast enough to catch them and that is what you will do. Try to separate who is which and which attack is what"** Oliver started to run around him firing arrows at the blind speedster.

Oliver wasn't kidding. Caitlin at least would fire icicles above his head. Nevertheless, his arrows were aimed quite expertly at him. It was obvious to her that the archer was hitting non lethal spots, but she was still worried that he could be injured. One arrow did indeed hit him in the arm, Caitlin wanted to stop but the speedster took it out and vibrated to heal his wound, motioning them to continue. This time, he closed his eyes and started to see what Caitlin was seeing. Her speed made it stupidly easy for him to pinpoint where the arrows were heading and block them, catch them and a few even being sent back at the archer. This training took a bit over two hours. Barry re learning to use his other senses, coupled with the training he got from his older self.

 **"That is enough for now. How about we try to spar again?"** The archer stopped and asked.

 **"I'm up for it. I'm going to try it both ways"** he spoke

 **"What do you mean both ways?"** his wife asked surprised from the background.

 **"Simple, I will try to spar keeping my eyes open. So that I am completely blind and with my eyes closed so that I can see what you`re seeing. Feel free to move around, sweetie. I need to see how I can deal with the fact that you cannot always be with your eyes on me. I need to be able to improvise"** Barry smiled toward his wife seeing himself through her eyes.

Barry and Oliver took their places, starting to spar. Of course, the archer had the advantage, but after a little while, the speedster seemed to be able to block his hits consistently. He was using the air pressure and the sounds that the fists made through the air while moving to fix the location of each hit. Next up, he closed his eyes and started to see images of their fights, the more he saw, the easier it was for him, knowing exactly where his wife was, to extrapolate the trajectory of the punches that Oliver was trying to hit him with.

The hardest exercise of them all for him was when Caitlin would look at them but not constantly. He had fragmented pictures and took more hits than he did in the precious sparring sessions.

 **"What's up, Barry? You seem to have a bit of difficulty with this little exercise"** Oliver stopped the sparring for a bit to find out why Barry kept getting hit so much.

 **"I need to get used to the fragmented imaging. It was easy when I had constant vision on what we were doing, even if it was from different angles. But with the way Caitlin moves around now, not being able to have permanent images of what we do, it is more difficult than usual"** Barry explained what was happening.

 **"It seems to me like you need to be able to keep your senses and my sight coupled at all times. Even if you do get fragments of my points of view. It is still more information than you have fighting blind. You should try that if you can. It only makes sense. Base your fighting on the fact that you cannot see and when you get information from my vision, just use that to make the hits and blocks even more accurate"** Caitlin tried to offer him a solution.

 **"That is precisely what I wanted to suggest, but your wife took the words right out of my mouth. Try that, Barry. Come on, let's start again"** Oliver got into a fighting stance and the two started sparring again.

Over the next hour Barry started to do exactly what was suggested to him. The more information he had from Caitlin, the better he would fight. Up to the point where if she was looking at them for more than a minute, it was obvious that by using his speed he had complete superiority over his opponent. A few times hitting so hard that Oliver lost balance and fell to the ground. Caitlin made sure to heal him via vibrations, or else the archer would have been out a long time ago due to the stamina draining hits that Barry produced on his body.

 **"That is enough for now. If you`re right and you don't know how long this blindness will last, the I suggest you two continue this type of training. Also, with what you managed to achieve here, you should be able to use Caitlin's view to not bump into cars or walls at high speed while the two were out saving the city"** The archer managed to articulate while he was resting.

 **"Thanks Oliver. This should help me a lot. I hope my sight isn't gone for good, but now at least I won't be stuck at home while Cait has to take care of the city"** the speedster said with glee in his voice. He was very happy that she wouldn't be alone out there. Even with his eyes gone, she would be his eyes.

 **"No problem, what are friends for, Now let's go get some food, this exercise has my stomach going wild"** he chuckled. The archer took the slow route back, while the two speedsters ran through the streets of Central City to get food. Barry managed to not bump into anything on the way there and on the way back, fact that surprised Caitlin, but also made her extremely happy. He could see without seeing, through her eyes, this only managed to make her even more curious about what other surprises their bond had in store for them.

Over the next few days, while they sparred, Caitlin decided to try herself the sparring without vision. Since Barry had still not recovered his eyesight, they were both on equal footing. Barry noted to himself that she picked things up incredibly fast. Over the course of a few training sessions she was constantly able to block his hits and even hit him back a few times leaving him with quite a few bruises.

They got used to sparring in the dark, even more so, using their senses to pin point each other without the use of light. Barry thought that particular skill useful, especially if they went in for recon in a dark area, she agreed and for the duration of his vision issues the two simply sparred in the training room with no light.

Another few days later, the speedster started to see. At first it was only shapes and tones of light. Then the colors started to come back and a few days after that his vision repaired itself and everything was back to the way it was. However, ever since he could see through her eyes she asked herself if the opposite was true as well. She tried to do the same as he had told her, just close her eyes and think of him and focus. To her surprise the first few times she tried that, nothing happened. It was like she couldn't do it. That was a bit annoying, after a few wasted tries she just gave up.

 ** _"Don't, worry, Cait. I still don't know why it worked for me or a consistent way to make it work. We'll figure it out somehow. We both have the same type of link, it would be strange that I can do something like that and you can't"_** Barry sensed her frustration and tried to calm her down.

 ** _"Not worrying, but as you probably felt, just a bit frustrated. You try, I know you managed to do it constantly while having your eyesight gone. Maybe it has another component that we just can't figure out"_ **She looked at him. He nodded closed his eyes and tried to focus on her, much to his surprise he couldn't seem to access her vision. Not even after multiple tries.

 ** _"Hmm, it doesn't seem to work now. This is strange. Maybe it's something automatic? A way for our bodies when they are damaged to use the link we have to give us something more?"_** the speedster asked

 ** _"I have no idea. We will have to figure it out eventually"_** She said with an annoyed tone. The couple decided to end their day and go home to rest. The next morning, Caitlin woke up alone in bed to the sound of the shower running. As she got out, Barry heard her and asked from the bathroom

 ** _"Good morning, beautiful, got any idea where the shampoo is? I can't seem to find it"_** Caitlin closed her eyes as to remember where she had put it the day before and suddenly she could see the bathroom. The link had activated again this time from her side. She saw the shampoo in a corner by the large bathtub.

 ** _"It's right in your field of vision too. Look by the bathtub in the corner behind the large bottle of body wash. That's where you'll find it"_** She replied getting out of bed and going to the bathroom to join him in the shower.

 ** _"Wait, how did you know that? You couldn't have seen it all the way from over there"_** She looked at her while she came into the bathroom and stepped into the shower with him. The two had stopped using pajamas or clothes, opting to sleep naked for quite a while.

 ** _"When you asked, I closed my eyes as to remember where I put it and I saw the bathroom through your eyes. While you turned around, I managed to see where the shampoo was hiding."_** She replied and Barry could see a large smile on her face.

 ** _"I see, that means as I can see through your eyes, you can see through mine. But this is so random, we don't know what triggered it in the first place"_** he started to help her wash herself and thought at the same time **_"Did you do anything differently? I mean something that might give us an indication of why that activated?"_**

 ** _"Not really, I woke up alone in bed and I missed your presence there, but when you asked about the shampoo all I did was think about you and where would I have put that and the next instant I saw through your eyes. There was nothing more except me thinking about you. I didn't even focus or try to access our link, besides talking_** " She replied.

 ** _"Could it be that there is some sort of mental block that stops that? It seems like we need to kind of give permission to one another to see through their eyes. I'm pretty sure the reason this only happened now is because you wanted me to see through your eyes when I was blind. You wanted to help. Which would explain why I was able to access your sight so readily and easily"_** Barry thought about that while they were both finishing up their shower.

 ** _"Could be. We need to continue trying and doing tests. Even in day to day situations, it could prove very useful when we want to share information and we're not around each other"_** She replied while drying herself off.

 ** _"Yes, because there are so many times we are apart, this sort of skill is actually useful"_** he said with a sarcastic tone making his wife laugh **_"We will just have to keep practicing, that's all. At least when I see through you or you see through me or vision doesn't get interfered with. That would be a bit ... shit"_**

 ** _"Yea. That could lead to some pretty bad issues if that happened. Thankfully, it doesn't. Come on, we need to go feed Alex and go back to STAR to check on our other kid"_** She quipped. Barry started to laugh when an image of Cisco came into mind in man diapers with a large bottle in his mouth. Caitlin had a knack of saying the weirdest things, but only when they were alone. She had never shed her professional behavior at work, well … most of the time. That seemed to have started slipping ever since she met the man she loved and she didn't seem to mind it one bit.


	71. Beachhead

Over the next short period of time, Barry and Caitlin kept an eye on the situation that was developing at the military base. The increase in shapeshifter signals coming from there was worrying, much to the point where Cisco actually suggested the two speedsters go and take it out. It was obvious that there was some sort of portal there, the problem is the power spikes that they were detecting were larger in magnitude than they expected. Cisco had been in the lab almost a full 4 days now sleeping when he could, building something that would help with pinpointing the location where the signal they had been detecting was beamed to. The contraption was to use the star satellite to focus a scanning field over a short region of the sky and try to capture any sort of background noise or a signal that was leaving the earth.

The two speedsters had been busy with their child, ever since they heard him say his first word, which surprisingly wasn't mama or dada, it was food, fact that Caitlin put down as to him being Barry's son, to which they both laughed heartily, they started to try to teach him other words that he might comprehend. However, no matter how busy they were with their child, they would always make sure the engineer was fed and caffeinated, coming by late at night when they couldn't sleep and telling him to put a sock in it and get some rest. Cisco appreciated the sentiment coming from them, but he wanted to make sure the signal magnifier was ready. He had a looking sense of dread, ever since he found out about the dominators and their plans. He didn't want his planet destroyed, but most of all, he didn't want Bette and his friends to get killed. That drive was put to good use, making him work faster and better than he ever managed.

That morning, the engineer had finished his device and with the help of the two speedsters had installed it on the roof of the STAR Labs building. He started scanning as soon as the contraption was active, checking the read out almost one a minute.

"Cisco, I know you built an alert into that software, why do you keep looking into the console so often? You seem distraught" Caitlin noticed her friend acting a bit strange than his usual cheery self.

"Well, you know. I want to find these guys sooner rather than later. The more information we have on them, the better we know how to counter their plans" He managed to mumble

"You`re scared that they will invade and it will be an all out massacre, aren't you?" Barry hit the nail on the head with a simple question

 **"Yes. I am. Very afraid, in fact. I don't want everyone I know to die"** the engineer realized the jig was up and that he should come clean with the two persons that knew him well enough to realize how his behavior changed.

"Don't worry. We have friends that will come to help if we need it and you know that. I shouldn't even mention how ridiculously powerful Kara and Clark are, not to mention my older self that is faster than both of us and has some tricks of his own. We will manage to get over this unscathed. However, let us take care of the matter at hand. Did you manage to get anything from that weird signal?" Barry inquired the engineer who had started some calculations.

"Approximately. The signal seems to not be going anywhere near the earth and the moon. As far as the angle of the transmission in galactic latitude and longitude would point to a path that leads somewhere along the moons of Jupiter and then simply disappear beyond the solar system" Cisco voiced while he was continuing to work.

"So you mean, the signal could be coming from outside your solar system and going back the same way it came?" Caitlin asked. She knew that her forte wasn't astrophysics.

"No, I doubt that. The signal that's being sent still travels at the speed of light. Which means anything beyond our galaxy is unlikely, since even at that speed the communication would take a very long time to reach even the next solar system, not to mention another galaxy. My guess is that somewhere along that path there is a ship, or maybe even a hidden base that is relaying the signals though some other form of interstellar communications back to their home world" the engineer offered a theory

"So what you're saying is that these aliens have another base somewhere in the solar system and they are using it to transport troops to earth" Barry drew a conclusion from what he understood.

"Either a base, or a ship or something even a relay transponder would work. Since I haven't been able to pinpoint the exact signal I can't tell you what it is at this time" the answer came.

"Ok, let that run and we'll see how we deal with it. What is going on at that military base? Did you manage to get more information?" Caitlin changed the subject.

"I have, actually. I managed to reposition one of the satellites to get a better view. These are some of the pictures I managed to take of the area" The engineer displayed some shots of the place that had the largest concentration of Durlan signals. Something was definitely off, there shouldn't have been that high of an influx of weaponry and people at only one installation and the gear they brought in seemed to be for a large scale conflict.

"Looks like they`re preparing for a war. Which would not be something strange considering if that is indeed their beachhead on this planet, then that is where everything still start from" Barry voiced.

"I think we should go there and take a look, Barry. These pictures tell us part of the story, but it's not something we can count on. We need to see this with our own eyes" Caitlin looked at him and he realized that she was right.

"Cisco, did the improvements that you put in our masks include some sort of zoom option or telescopic vision, something akin to what Kara has?" The speedster asked his friend

"No, didn't, but I could rewire the cameras that you both have in your shields so you could control them from the bracers. They do have zoom functionality in them just hasn't been used until now. You want to stay away and not be seen surveying the area, I suppose" Cisco immediately opened another window and connected to the circuitry in their bracers rewriting some of the software.

"Yes, that would be amazing. We want to go and take a look, maybe take some pictures of the installation, to familiarize ourselves with the layout and everything that we can find out. If we intend to attack that facility and destroy it, we need to know as much about it as we can" Caitlin voiced

"I agree. Come on. we should go now while its daytime so we can get as much information as we can. We can come back and sift through it later" Barry looked at his wife already changing in her Frost form. "You know, you should wear that without the suit sometimes, you look pretty sexy with it" Barry inadvertently opened his mouth and said exactly what he was thinking.

 **"You know, I just might. But enough with the mind in the gutter, mister, we have some work to do"** She smirked flashing into her suit. It still amazed her that even with the amount of work they had, her husband still took the time to make her feel sexy and wanted, it was one of the reasons she loved him so much. She had seen what a loveless marriage can do in the instance of her own parents and she was very happy that their example was a one off, not the actual norm. In the next instant he had changed as well and they were both out the door. With their speed it only took them less than 5 minutes to reach the outskirts of the military installation that they had pinpointed on the map.

They took their time to survey the operation as well as they could form the outside, making sure that they approached as stealthily as possible. They didn't use their speed too much since the lightning was something that could be seen. However their suits were standing out quite a lot in the light.

"You were on point with what you said. These guys have tanks and weaponry for a small army here. What the hell do they think they`re doing? Either they paid a lot to have this location secured, or they must have someone on the inside that is keeping a tight lid on all of this" Caitlin was looking around as she spoke

"Yea, this is a large problem. But there is one that is bigger. Look at them, they are all human, we cannot go in and start taking people out on the basis that they are all Durlans. We risk killing innocent people that way" The speedster put his thoughts into coherent reasoning

"We still have that Durlan back in the pipeline. Do you think we can come up with something that will destabilize his cells and at least give us some sort of hint that he isn't human?" She came up with an idea on the fly.

"I think it would be best if we tried. We can't just go into a military installation and kill everyone. While I have no problem of offing the aliens that are trying to invade our planet, I would rather the people that are native to here remain intact" he responded.

"All right, let's take another walk around the compound and take as many pictures as we can and then we can go back to STAR and see if there is some way to make the Durlans reveal themselves" She smiled at him giving him a kiss. The walk around the compound took a little bit more than they bargained for, since they had to keep their heads down and unnoticed, but they managed to get a few good pictures in. As they were surveying, they could see that one of the edged of the large airstrip that was in the compound started to sink, revealing what they could only guess was a hangar door of some kind. They waited for the door to open for a while, but their position was exposed so they had to move on. However, now they knew that there was for sure something beneath that structure that was on the surface. They returned to the Labs, where Cisco was waiting for them, Bette making an appearance as well. She was worried about the engineer, she knew that he had stuff to do, that didn't mean that she didn't miss him.

"The place is a fortress, however if we do intend to attack it we need to be able to make the difference between shifted aliens and humans" Caitlin flashed out and in a few seconds was back with a tissue sample from the lobotomized Durlan that they had in the basement. "This should do fine for a sample"

"While you were gone I managed to pinpoint the signal's target. It seems to be a large craft that is hidden on the dark side of one of Jupiter's moons. Should I contact the people with the large spacecraft to go take a look?" Cisco spoke from behind his console.

"No, not as of yet, but since you know where that craft is, keep an eye on it and tell us immediately if there are more that popped in. One craft is not that large of an issue, unless it's some sort of mothership" Barry explained his way of thinking to the engineer who agreed.

The two speedsters got to work in their usual manner. The tests they ran on the cell they obtained from the Durlan seemed inconclusive at first. They could not find any sort of external agent that could at least turn them back to their original form. The alien had been stuck in human for following the probing that J`onn did, its shapeshifting abilities probably getting turned off while the rational mind was not active.

"Cait, here's a thought. If they give off only when they change, would it be possible that the same thing might at least provoke some sort of reaction in their cells that would turn them at least for a while back into their original forms?" Barry asked while he was experimenting with vibrations on a part of the sample they had.

"That might work, but I doubt it. The cells give off that specific signature themselves and only when they change. They trigger that signature, not the other way around. I think using that precise thing against them would not yield any results simply because of the cause and effect chain. However, because this Durlan is stuck in human form, but was unable to complete the transformation when J`onn stepped in, I found some trace amounts of a certain chemical that I think is what triggers the change and sustains it in the first place" She pointed as a compound of unknown origin that was still present in the cells.

 **"I see. Is there any way we can synthesize that?"** Barry looked at the chemical formula. Strangely enough, it did not contain any sort of alien material that they couldn't recognize.

"Yes, quite easily I might add. But we have to see if it provides us with the reaction that we want. There is something else to consider however. Bette, you would know best in this kind of situation. What would soldiers do if suddenly they are faced with aliens, that seem to be on restricted soil?" Caitlin asked the only person in the room who has been in the military chain of command.

"That depends on what their standing orders might be, but since I doubt they include aliens, the human ones would probably start firing on sight and try to kill them" She answered.

"That could be a problem, given their initial form is quite amorphous, I don't even think these things can be killed by bullets. Human casualties seem more than likely in that particular scenario" Barry said with a bit of disdain in his eyes.

"We could get the humans out and just take care of whatever they have down there and the aliens. Our end goal would be either to shut down or destroy whatever they are hiding down there, would it not?" she asked her husband which nodded.

"Let's see what this compound does to the cells we have, after that we can test it on the Durlan in the pipeline. If it's compatible and it works, then we can think about attacking the base and how do we go on with this plan" He voiced. The two spend the better part of the afternoon and half the night synthesizing a small quantity of the compound that they found in the Durlans cells. Taking turns in feeding Alex and making sure he had some rest. Even if this endeavor was of the utmost importance, their child always came first and above everything and anything. The two managed to go home and rest for the rest of the night, but were back at the labs as soon as they woke up. They wanted to see if the chemical was worth getting into large production or was worthless.

The results were more than they were expected. It seemed the compound was something that triggered the change in the Durlan cells. However, from Caitlin managed to piece together its production was supposed to be shut down as soon as the change ended so that the cells could remain in their new form. As the two scientists found out, an overdose of that particular compound would block the cells in a shift state, not knowing which form to take. By the time the overdose was over, the cells returned to their original form.

 **"What do you think? Should we try it on our friend in the basement?"** Barry asked looking at the injector that he was holding in his hand.

"I have always been opposed to human experiments when it came to things like this. But to be fair, they aren't human and they want to take over our planet. Let's go" She replied. The speedster was surprised at the way his wife reasoned, but he realized that she was right. They had to do this, even if it meant experimenting on what could only be called a prisoner of war.

The moment they injected the serum into the motionless Durlan his body started to change almost immediately. The body started to shift through several version of people that particular one had taken form. Caitlin noted that he looked like the time she had made the serum that worked on Hannibal Bates. After a few minutes, the familiar shape of a Durlan, the one that they had seen before appeared and the shifting stopped. In the cell there was now an amorphous tentacle mass with a hood.

"Good, now we know this will work on Durlans. There is just one more question that needs answered. Does this compound affect humans? And if so, how does it act?" Caitlin knew that in the end she still didn't like to kill people and knew that her husband felt the same.

"There's only one way to find out. Let's get back to the Cortex, shoot me with it and see what happens. Worst case scenario, its like a poison and my enhanced metabolism will take care of it, best case it's nothing that will put me in any danger" he offered quite nonchalantly

"Wait are you serious? You want me to inject this into you?" She looked at him rather scared.

 **"Do you have a better idea?"** he asked with a serious face. She considered all her options and decided that small scale would be better, but on a larger scale, what Barry proposed seemed to be the better choice.

"I can sit and think about it, but in such a short timeframe, sadly I don't" she looked pretty bummed out after they returned to the cortex.

"Nothing's gonna happen to me. I have my personal physician right here. If there's someone who can get me out of trouble it's her" Barry gave her a winning smile.

"Fine, you charmer. I'll do it" she finally gave in

"Good. Get the same dose that you gave that Durlan. We don't know who is alien and who is not so we'll have to give everyone the same shot" He sat on the operating table and Caitlin did precisely as instructed.

 **"Wow, this is wild. I'm seeing sounds"** Barry started to talk like he was wasted. Caitlin got some blood and realized that the new compound acted in a similar fashion to Ecstasy when in the body of a human. The dose was nowhere near fatal, Barry's body barely reacting to it **"Hey, do you know how beautiful you look today?"** He was raving on and on, while she smiled. The drug was … relatively safe at that dosage to work on humans, only giving them a mild drug trip. After about 10 minutes, due to his high speed metabolism, Barry stood up and held his head. **"God, I didn't know this is how you feel after a trip. Damn, what a migraine"**

"Here, take these. It should help" Caitlin came back with two pills which he gulped down and started to feel better "So, the same dose that it takes a Durlan to change provokes drug effects in a human, which are not dangerous or toxic as far as I have seen" She took a blood sample from him after the trip was over to make sure no damage was done either.

"At least we know the soldiers aren't going to believe what they saw after that drug trip. Which might prove beneficial in the long run since we don't really want to start a panic in the populace letting them know there are alien shapeshifters roaming around" Barry was started to think clearly again, his head clearing from the trip he just took.

"All right then. We should try to make some sort of action plan. We can't just go in there half cocked. We risk getting ourselves killed" she stated the obvious for good measure.

"We should limit our incursion to night time. That way there will be fewer people we have to drug and fewer guards we have to bypass" Barry started. While he was thinking she went and bought pizza and donuts since they were hungry.

"That seems like a good idea, except the less light there is, the more our lightning becomes apparent. I think we should talk to Cisco and see if there isn't a way to camouflage the energy that we produce for … night running" she replied while munching on a piece of pizza.

"I thought about something like that" the engineer was at the entrance of the cortex just listening to them talk "You two produce a colossal amount of power when you run. I don't think I will be able to produce a device that will just absorb that energy and leave your speed intact. If we try to use the nanites to lower your energy completely, then you two will become slower, which could prove fatal in that sort of combat situation"

"Ok, so night running is out. If we try this while there is no light there is absolutely no doubt that we will be seen" Barry rubbed his forehead "All right then, if there is no way to hide our lightning trails then maybe we should limit the exposure we get. We should talk to Felicity, we need either the power in the facility killed, of their security and cameras taken over and scrambled. It would be a large predicament if we show up on any footage after something was completely destroyed in a US facility"

 **"I can offer another option if you want to stay incognito"** Bette strolled into the Cortex pinching Cisco's ass while she did that.

 **"We're listening"** Barry sat down with Caitlin in his lap.

"You want to not be seen. Well, all you have to do is find me a nice vantage point, give me a sniper rifle with injector cartridges which contain the serum you two created. And I can have them into the people that are guarding the place in no time. I had all kinds of training in the military, I know how to handle guns, if that wasn't obvious enough" She started to chuckle.

"While I don't like the obvious problem with putting you in danger, that might be the best idea we have come up with yet. Here is something more to that, the facility has to have some sort of air filtration system, right?" Caitlin has something spark in her mind.

"Usually all facilities have air filtration systems. What are you thinking about, Caitlin?" Bette asked surprised at the scientist.

"Nothing is stopping us to make a mist form of the chemical that we have and instead of injecting everyone inside, we just pipe it thought the ventilation, wait a few minutes, at which point the soldiers inside will either transform into Durlans, or be completely high" she voiced

"Or, we can put a sleeping agent in the same mist we use to distribute the compound through the facility and we simply put them all to sleep" Barry added.

"As far as I know most military installations have computer systems that use the filters to detect strange chemicals that come in from the outside. The moment you would do that the filtration system would close and the base would go on recycled air to prevent viral infections" Bette said trying to remember what was the exact protocol for a chemical attack.

"We will have to talk to Felicity and see if she can hack in from the outside and turn that warning off. If they get an alert that someone is trying to do that, we might have a large retaliation force bearing down on us and I don't want to deal with more people than we have to. Gassing them with Ecstasy is bad enough" Caitlin almost face palmed.

"All right. Then that is how we're going to do it. We will need Felicity" Barry started getting cut off by his wife.

 **"I'll go see her and make the necessary arrangements, while you talk"** she was out the door in a flash of blue lightning. On my way to Star City to talk to Felicity, I'll be back in a bit"

"Where did she run off to? I thought she was going to make a phone call" Cisco blurted out.

"She went to Star City, if we decide to do this tonight, Felicity will have to be here for that to work" Barry explained to the two.

After an hour, Caitlin came back with Felicity in tow. She had been put up to speed with what they were trying to do and didn't even take a minute to accept. The couple, along with Felicity Cisco and Bette made sure that their plan didn't have holes, also starting the fabrication of the chemical they made. They timed everything down as tightly as they could, they made a few backup plans in case that their original one would run into snags as well. The group was pretty impressed with Barry who came up with most of the backups that they had in place, after the discussion with Bette. The friends that would usually tease him about running into burning buildings suddenly saw a side of the speedster that only one person knew about, his wife. The side that was meticulous and planned for everything having contingencies for anything he could think of.

The night was nearing and they got into the van that the labs had, the speedsters making sure to cover any sort of identifiable marking, they would cover the license plate as soon as they got on the site to not have issues. Inside, Cisco and Bette managed to put a large portable generator and the tech that Felicity would need to be able to hack into the computers of the base. The back of the van was occupied by a large case with the rifle that Bette requested along with a couple dozens of bullets that contained the chemical the two speedsters developed. After about three hours of driving they reached the military base, the van being stashed behind a rock formation that aided with the camouflage since it broke the line of sight with the base.

Barry took Bette on a nearby hill along with the rifle and the bullets. The location had been chosen perfectly because it had a vantage point on the whole base. There were a few dead zones, but both speedsters would make sure those were clear, so she would be able to hit her targets without alerting the others. Cisco prepared a few smart bombs, the compound in liquid form would be thrown in the ducts, and at the contact with air the skin would dissolve creating a vaporizing effect that would spread the chemical in the base. He had them in an anaerobic container and was ready to go on a moment's notice. The spot chosen for the van being relatively close to one of the ventilation exists that the base had.

 **"Everyone ready?"** Caitlin asked. They were all in place. Felicity started to look for ways into the system of the military base, strangely enough she found one even thought she had initially thought that their computer setup would have been completely off the grid. In a few minutes, all the cameras were in a loop, the first phase of the plan was done.

Bette started shooting from the hill, the rifle had a silencer and her training was solid. She didn't miss a shot, but she did take her time to make sure that the people that were either on a drug trip or started shifting did not manage to see one another. After about half an hour, with Barry and Caitlin spotting for her from the other side where they had an angle, most of the people were down. There were only two Durlans between those guards, which was surprising. Cisco was up next, after a few minutes the balls that were in the container he had brought along were falling into the ventilation shaft of the base. Felicity was in the system of the base and the moment the detection system went off, she cut it and killed the routine that would initiate the lockdown.

"Ok, give the gas a few minutes to take effect and go into every area" Cisco came back and sat near Felicity monitoring the base.

"Are there any places where the ventilation might not reach?" Barry asked. Felicity was already way ahead of him.

"No, because this is an underground installation, if there was any place like that the people would not be able to work there. The amount of carbon dioxide would kill anyone. Sit tight, I'm monitoring the spread of the gas through the facility. I also cut their communications to the outside so we don't have unwanted visitors" the blonde replied typing something on the console in front of her. After about 10 minutes the sensors inside the base reported that there was no area which was the gas didn't already reach. The two speedsters put on gas masks, because they really didn't want a drug trip and went to the elevator at the back of the building on top which Felicity called for them.

The inside of the consisted of three levels, the first level from their exploration was just crew quarters and some meeting rooms along with two recreating rooms. The second floor housed a research facility on multiple levels, in there they found alien tech which was most likely from the Durlans or the Dominators themselves. What was already built, the two dissolved into nothing.

"Felicity, there will be blueprints on the computers that are alien in nature. Do a thorough scan of the system and delete anything that is out of the ordinary or might seem alien. Full scrub with wipes. I do not want them to ever recover that data" Barry voiced.

"Also since you'll be doing that, see if there are any other military installations across the country that might have tied or communications with this one. I wouldn't be surprised if there are Durlans infiltrated all over the country" Caitlin concluded.

"Does it seem odd to you that most of the Durlan signals that we managed to get on our detectors were here, but in reality we have encountered … what? Maybe 4 Durlans all together?" Barry talked to his wife while they were both speeding through the second level going back to the elevator.

"Yes, it does seem strange. What do we do with the Durlans that we have discovered though?" She asked.

"My thought would be to just phase them out of existence. We cannot leave shapeshifters on this planet that want to invade us, Cait" he spoke and she looked at him. He was serious.

 **"All right. Let's see what's on the third level and when we come back we can take care of the aliens"** She replied. In her mind she almost wanted. When they got down, they were amazed. The third level was a large empty area with supports, a lot of weapons and in the middle something that looked like some sort of portal. Two large towers stood on either end and were humming full of electricity.

"Felicity, we need you to cut the power to the base. They have some sort of portal down here, but we cannot get near it because the energy is on" Caitlin said in her comm.

 **"Blackout … on the way"** she said cheerfully pressing a button on her keyboard that completely shut the base down except the main elevator. Barry and Caitlin grabbed a pillar each and started vibrating, after a short bit they managed to phase them out, scattering their molecules into the void. Since they were here and they still had enough energy, they also made all the ammo disappear. There was no point in destroying the weapons, without ammo they would be useless, besides, it took way less energy to phase a couple of crates of ammo than the whole room full of weapons.

On their way back they made the Durlans disappear as well as cleaning up after themselves, making sure that there was no indication of anyone passing by inside the base. After a couple of minutes more, the speedsters reached the surface and finished off the remaining Durlans coming back to the van.

 **"That should do it. Whatever they were using for transport is gone. How are you doing on their data scrub?"** Barry inquired the blonde.

 **"That has been finished. Right now I'm just taking care of stray things to make sure that nobody detects the break in. I left a trojan in their system that will give me access and send data to us, so we can keep an eye on this particular location"** she voiced. Barry was out and in a few seconds came back with Bette and the rest of the bullets in their container.

 **"Nice shooting there. I don't think I ever saw you miss once"** Caitlin said visible impressed about the chief of security's aim.

 **"My baby can shoot!"** Cisco said with a proud voice.

 **"When you're in combat, aim and positioning is what your life hangs on. Awareness of your surroundings is key as well. I have been there you know. But still, thank you for the compliments"** she smiled and did a small curtsy. Cisco noted that she looked sexy in the black outfit she selected for the night mission, putting that in his mental storage box for later use.

They drove back and the sun was almost up when they returned back to Central City. They unloaded the van and left to their respective homes, Felicity opting to take a guest room in the penthouse to be able to sleep. They tried not to bother Joe which was here on babysitting duty taking care of Alex while they were gone. The couple was happy, everything went according to plan and they had dealt a large blow to the invading force by cutting off their supply lines. That would prove invaluable if an actual war or conflict had broken out, as Barry explained as they were initially making the plan. The two went to rest, wondering if there would be any sort of retaliation from the aliens or they were just going to sweep it under the rug, but for now, they were content with the outcome of their endeavor.

* * *

AN: Hello everyone, due to unforeseen circumstances regarding my job, i am forced to break the weekly update cycle that you have gotten accustomed to. My work is slowly eating my free time and after a long day at work, my brain is fried enough to a point where i cant even manage to write a coherent sentence without having to edit it a dozen times.

Due to this predicament, i am going to start updating this story and my other one whenever i have time to write something coherent and workable. This does not mean i am going to leave them unfinished, if its one thing i don't like its a story without an end ( good or bad ), just that i will be updating both of them whenever i find the time to write.

Thank you


	72. Vanguard

Ever since the people in the lab have managed to create a computer matrix powerful enough to run what they would call the first version of Gideon, and since their own child started to talk, Barry and Caitlin along with Cisco and Bette began their conversations with the AI to be able to establish some conversational protocols and responsiveness algorithms. Gideon also took over the watcher protocol, as Cisco names the sensor array that kept monitoring any sort of signals that were going over to the ship in orbit around Jupiter's moon.

The Ai, aided in part by the learning protocols that the two speedsters put into its core programming started to pick up things phenomenally fast, reaching almost a full level of conversational ability in only a few weeks. The matrix seemed stable and as much information as the AI was processing it the amount of power that it would use never reached more than 60% of the power of the processors that had been created specifically to handle the intelligence subroutines.

The speedsters along with Felicity and Cisco were proud of what they could create, in a way, Gideon was as much their child as Alex was Barry and Caitlin's. Having the immense capacity to learn like it did was amazing. Cisco went to work and over the course of a few weeks while the Ai was learning to interact he managed to build prototype hologram projectors that he spread out in a few key points in the lab. The cortex, the Gideon room, his laboratory, the server room and Bette's office. They were still wary about people finding out they had created an artificial intelligence, since there were still factions in play that were against that.

After the break in and complete destruction of the portal device, the frequency of the signals sent to the Jupiter ship had increased. Cisco tried to pinpoint the origin point on earth, but hit a snag. Even with the help of Gideon, they could only triangulate the source in a large 700 mile radius which was disconcerting for the engineer.

 **"Gideon, is there any reason our triangulation would be so broad?"** The engineer inquired

 **"The most plausible reason would be that there is some sort of dampening field in effect that is masking the actual origination location of the signal. But I do not have information on something that would be active over such a large area"** the Ai responded

 **"I see. Without more information there is nothing more we can do, sadly. Is there any way to determine the frequency of the dampening field? Or at least from where it's being broadcasted?"** Cisco had an idea

 **"No. It could be anywhere in that radius. Depending on how the device works, it could be in the dead center of the triangulation area, projecting an umbrella that would mask everything, or it could be on one of the sides. I cannot draw any precise conclusion with the data I have available right now"** Gideon replied bluntly.

 **"Very well. Thank you, Gideon, keep me updated on the progress of those scans"** Cisco replied and wanted to go out of the cortex when the two speedsters walked in with the usual stroller that held a smiling child.

 **"Morning, Cisco. What are you doing here so early?"** Caitlin smiled at her friend, noticing the bags under his eyes.

 **"I couldn't sleep. This whole invasion thing is keeping me up at night. Bette is trying her best to make me rest, but … I don't know. I'm just antsy and concerned I guess"** the man answered them quite bluntly.

 **"Cisco, when push comes to shove we will need you at your peak to help with whatever comes our way. Now get your ass out of here and go get some rest. Or if you want to stay in the lab, go take a couch and take a nap. You getting exhausted is by no meaning a good thing"** Barry reinforced what Caitlin was saying. The engineer finally gave in, being attacked from two sides and went to the back to get some rest while the two speedsters were handling things in the Cortex.

After a few hours they had an incoming transmission from somewhere. It was piped through Gideon, so they had no idea who was trying to contact them before they saw the face on the screen. It was Sara.

 **"So, you finally managed to build the first version of Gideon, huh?"** she smiled looking at the couple.

 **"Well, you know. We thought we should do something during our downtime"** Barry completely downplayed the event **"But how did you manage to contact us through her?"**

 **"It's a bit difficult to explain, but that's not why I called. Remember when we discussed about the dominators and their plans and we agreed that the Wave Rider would keep an eye on the planet and the solar system?"** She continued to speak

 **"Yes. Has the situation changed in any way?"** Caitlin inquired hopeful that this was just a check in call and nothing was new.

 **"Indeed it has. Before there was just one ship in the orbit of one of the moons of Jupiter, but you already knew that from what I'm seeing. We detected further signatures that appeared a few hours ago from your time perspective. Ray had Gideon scan the timeline and nothing seemed to have changed from that point, but when we went to check out the staging area, some things appeared that Gideon had not previously detected"** Her voice was pretty concerned as the two speedsters noted.

 **"Go on"** Barry replied looking at the screen

 **"Several ships of unknown description have appeared at the edge of the solar system and then took about the same relative position as the one that was already there. As far as Gideon was telling me, those ships were not in transit before, they just appeared there. This is a highly irregular since it would mean that the aliens have some sort of jump technology that can give them the ability to travel great distances. At the moment there are only 4 new ships. One is similar to the previous one and the other three are of a new configuration. I tasked our Gideon to see if she can find a similarity to some of the races we know from the Time Master's databases"** Sara imparted the knowledge she had to the two

 **"Do you have any way to scan inside those ships? See if they are actually carrying an invasion force or maybe they are just supply ships of some description?"** Caitlin replied checking the signals that were going back and forth.

 **"We haven't tried yet. We will do so as soon as we're done with what we're doing at the moment and will let you know"** she replied.

 **"Ok thank you. We'll be here"** Caitlin smiled and Sara closed the communication link. **"So, we managed to terminate their base of operations and suddenly 4 new ships pop out of nowhere at the edge of our solar system. That doesn't seem like coincidence"**

 **"No, what we did might have just been a reason to step up their plans. We have to be careful from now on. However, at this time there is nothing more we can do except wait for Sara to give us more data on the new ships. We should get something to eat, maybe get Cisco a coffee and some pizza for when he wakes up"** Barry smiled toward his wife who nodded. The two flashed out and brought back food and coffee, Caitlin going to the Gideon room and picking up Alex and bringing him back to the Cortex for his own meal. For some reason that they could not understand, Gideon requested that the couple leave their child with her. Whenever this was brought up the Ai would simply say that she wanted to make sure the child of her creators were safe and she wanted to understand the way a child sees the world.

However, that seemed beneficial for the little guy. The amount of information that Gideon was holding, coupled with the fact that, while his speedster powers were indeed suppressed, his mind seemed to be working at the same speed that his parents minds worked. The child began to understand things very fast. Somehow, as Barry pointed out, being with Gideon gave him a playmate as well as a teacher, the Ai was seemingly content about this role. The two did however spend as much time as they could with their son, being around almost all the time while he was awake except if there was something very important that they had to take care of or it was nap time.

Later in the day, even earlier than the two speedsters thought about, Sara came back with information, they had finished what they were doing as she put it and went for a recon run. Cisco had woken up and finished the food and coffee the couple brought him, restarting to work on w more powerful version of the sensor array that was already on the roof of the labs.

 **"I thought you said you had something important to do"** Barry smiled at the image of Sara on the screen.

 **"Come on, Barry, you know how time works, we could have finished what we needed and called back almost the instant I closed that initial call. You know how the passage of time has no meaning when you`re in a time ship"** She chuckled.

 **"Did your reconnaissance run yield anything?"** Caitlin asked.

 **"You want to good news or the bad news?"** Sara asked quite bluntly

 **"The bad new first"** Barry replied in the same tone **"We need to be prepared if something happens"**

 **"All right. The ships that have jumped into Jupiter's orbit do indeed seem to have the capacity to hold an invasion force. We managed to stay off their sensors for a while and pickup some of their communication, but there was nothing interesting, all they were talking about were supplies and plans, but without indications of what type of supplies they were missing and what their plans were"** Sara voiced

 **"I see, so we might have a lot more ships in the vicinity as soon as they can make the trip over from whatever galaxy they are from"** Caitlin concluded.

 **"Yes, that would seem likely. You two cutting off their base of operations on the ground could have sparked the beginning of a full scale invasion"** The woman replied.

 **"Ok so … if this is the bad news, what is the good news?"** Barry inquired, thinking about what Sara had just said.

 **"The good news is a two parter actually. Since you managed to unlock Gideon it seems that the Wave rider now has weaponry and not some lightweight stuff either. IF needed we can always jump in and take out some of the ships there, I doubt their tech is as advanced as the time masters. Part two, our sensors seem to be able to scan the interior of the ships and this will sound strange to you. The vessels have a minimum complement of staff. Gideon did not manage to detect any sort of long term life support like cryogenics or stasis"** She voiced.

 **"But that doesn't really make sense now does it? Why would you send a few ships with a skeleton crew to participate in an invasion?"** Caitlin made wide eyes at the assassin's statement.

 **"I don't know, that sounds stupid from a point of a military tactician, unless one or more of those ships have the technology to facilitate intergalactic travel. We haven't detected anything of the sort, but as you know, if the tech is powered down, or even packed, we might not detect it at all"** She stated.

 **"So, what you`re saying is that in effect these might be builder ships for some sort of interdimensional corridor for the other ships to get here faster?"** Barry knew how his words sounded, but that was what was going through his mind.

 **"I would guess so, some sort of technology that would facilitate their transition from their home world to our solar system. That would be the only logical explanation to why they sent so few ships with so little crew"** Sara told the two

 **"We haven't managed to isolate any sort of abnormal energy signatures, there are no large energy spikes, particles in that side of space seem to be in order, there is no exotic matter, or gravitons, which would be indicative of some sort of space bending tech, or anything out of the ordinary"** Professor Stein stepped into the picture.

 **"Hello Professor Stein. Thank you for the analysis"** Caitlin greeted cheerfully.

 **"And a good day to you as well, Caitlin. Hello Barry"** He responded.

 **"Then from what you're telling me, we will more than likely have to wait and see what happens. Is that kind of correct?"** the speedster inquired.

 **"That is all we can do, my dear boy. We will continue flying around with the wave rider between missions and we'll send reports to you as soon as anything changes"** The professor replied.

 **"All right. Thank you. Also you can always come down and take a few days off, all that time jumping must be tiring"** Caitlin smiled

 **"We just might, but right now we have to be somewhere else. We detected another time quake. Guess those three are at it again"** Sara replied with disdain in her voice **"We'll see you later"**

 **"All right. Take care"** The couple replied and the line went dead.

 **"What she said makes perfect sense, however we have no idea what kind of technology those people have, they could be able to use particles and effects of theories that we never even came up with"** Cisco muttered from the sidelines.

 **"What are you thinking, Cisco?"** Barry asked his friend seeing him focused on his work

 **"I wanted to boost the sensor array to detect other types of particles, but I had no idea what kind. I think you should call Tina, I might need some help, she is the resident physicist here. The improvements I'm making will render us able to detect any sort of residual particles that we know about, in the vicinity of those ships. Sure, we will get the results after a while, but it's still better than nothing"** the engineer replied.

 **"You can call Tina yourself, it's not like she's just our friend"** Caitlin made a pretty obvious observation. Cisco nodded and restarted his work. Before they managed to say something else, Barry's phone rang. It was Eddie.

 **"Hey, Eddie. What's up?"** the speedster replied with a cheery voice.

 **"We might have a problem, can you come down to the lab? We need to talk"** he replied with a very serious tone.

 **"On our way"** Caitlin answered. **"Cisco, mind watching Alex until we're back?"**

 **"No problem, me and Gideon will keep an eye on him"** Cisco answered and went back to his tinkering. The two speedsters ran out the door, not even changing from their outfits. They were way too fast for someone to actually see them not wearing their suits, most of the city just noticing the two trails of lightning that was produced as they ran. They took the short way in coming through the open window to the lab where Eddie was already waiting for them.

 **"Tell me, how long is it since you last saw Joe?"** Eddie asked quite bluntly

 **"I don't know, maybe a few days? Why?"** Caitlin replied sitting down, checking if the lab had more evidence left in the pile that they could process while they were talking to him.

 **"Because he has not been in for work. I tried to call him, but his phone always returns a busy signal, Iris has no idea what happened and since neither one of you has seen him for a while, I don't know. It's like he disappeared"** the blue eyed detective said with a bit of worry in his voice. Eddie eventually found out the reason Joe had to deny him the first time when he asked about marrying Iris, however, he did not seem to hold any kind of grudge on Joe. The two were partners and they had worked for a while before that happened, so Eddie just took it at face value. In a later discussion at one of their Christmas parties, Barry explained to him what had happened and how Joe actually felt like shit for treating him the way he did. Eddie seemed to be fine with Joe now, the two becoming closer as the time passed, the old detective starting to see his partner as his son in law.

 **"Oh great. Don't tell me this is another Maggie Sawyer. I know what you wanted to ask. Nobody knows he works part time for STAR Labs, from the outside he is just Detective Joe West"** Barry tried to lay out his thoughts in an orderly manner.

 **"Eddie, did you check to see if Cecile is anywhere? Don't want to spoil the whole mystery of where Joe is, but did you ever think that he might just have taken a few days off to enjoy some quality time with his girlfriend?"** Caitlin didn't usually like to state the obvious, but in this case she felt it necessary to put Eddie's mind out of danger mode.

 **"I did think of that. You are correct in assuming that I couldn't find Cecile either. Do you really think this is simply them eloping and having some time to themselves?"** The detective asked the two

 **"I know because of the stuff we went through, our minds default to someone being in danger, but yes, in this case it could simply be that. Did you ask David if Joe requested some leave time?"** Caitlin inquired.

 **"No. I was about to do that, but I thought to call you first, there was no point in going to the Captain if you two knew he was away"** the answer came.

 **"Eddie, you are now as much part of this family as we are. I doubt Joe would tell us something and not tell either you or Iris. Remember that"** Barry told the man

 **"You want to go ask the Captain about Joe? Or should we?"** Caitlin interjected. Before Eddie could say anything, he got a call on his radio that something was going on downtown. **"I guess that answers my question, you got do your job, we'll talk to David and see if we can pinpoint what happened"**

 **"Ok. Thank you. Keep me in the loop"** Eddie smiled and was out the door. The two speedsters got out and entered the precinct through the front door, even though most people weren't even surprised to see them go down the stairs from the lab, even if nobody saw them come in. They asked the desk sergeant if the Captain was busy and the man invited them to go in.

 **"Good morning, Captain"** Barry greeted.

 **"Barry, Caitlin. What brings you to the precinct, I don't think we have new evidence for you to help with. Patty has been doing a wonderful job in keeping her evidence log cleared. Or did you come to tell me that the new armors the CCPD ordered from STAR are already done"** he had a sly smile on his face.

 **"We can't really finish the armor early, David. If we skip steps in the fabrication process and we don't ensure the quality of the product then it can turn out to be pretty useless. We don't want that. No, we came to you with a different issue. Do you know if Joe asked for leave time?"** Caitlin inquired

 **"Yes, he did and from quite a while back. Why do you want to know?"** the Captain asked surprised looking at the two people that were in his office.

 **"He kind of … disappeared off the radar, without saying anything to any of us. Not even his own daughter, so of course we were worried. Trying to call him didn't really yield anything and Eddie told us he hasn't been in at work. We thought the worst"** Barry replied.

 **"Why would you even think that? You know Joe can take care of himself, he's a seasoned cop"** The answer came.

 ** _"Should we tell him what happened with Maggie?"_** Barry asked his wife.

 ** _"If we do, we have to tell him to keep it to himself, if this information got out it would create a panic the lights of which we've never seen"_** She replied

 ** _"I know that, Cait. I mean, should we tell him so that he knows what might happen in the future. Having the CCPD prepared for an all out attack might save lives in the long run"_** he reasoned.

 ** _"I think so. Even if for now it's just him, I think he needs to know what is about to go down. Even if it's a few months away"_** the reply came instantly.

 **"What we're about to tell you is … way beyond your paygrade. Ours as well, but we have to keep an eye on these things, if we are to keep this city safe"** Barry started **"A while back, my twin from National City and his girlfriend "lost" a person. Kind of the same way we have now, they thought she was out enjoying herself with her girlfriend … and a few days later they found that girlfriend unconscious in an Alien pod in a basement in National. I assume us talking about aliens isn't much of an issue, since now everyone knows they exist"**

 **"Yes, we know. I assume you`re talking about Kara? I remember her being from National City"** David spoke.

 **"Yes. Her sister disappeared. Well, we wish that was everything, except it wasn't. It turned out to be a plot from another alien race called the Dominators. Those come to a planet, and run tests on the populace"** Caitlin continued Barry's story

 **"To what end, I would understand if they were like the greys back in the 50's. We didn't know about aliens, we were oblivious, so they needed to stay covert and do their tests, but now? When everyone knows aliens exist? Why is that even necessary?"** the Captain looked at them with a confused face.

 **"While that is correct, the aliens we are talking about are a new race. Not a friendly one in fact. They only infiltrate and test people from the planets they want to invade"** Barry explained calmly, waiting for David to realize what he had said.

 **"The reason we were worried about Joe, is that something similar happened to Kara's sister, as we have said. The problem with that being, that we found the double that almost kidnapped her. The alien is still locked down in our lab, he is a shape shifter, someone that can take any form of anyone. We suppose he could do that by sampling bits of DNA from the one he is supposed to copy by touch. That's why we had Eddie check if the DA was missing too. If she was at work, then … Joe could have been in real trouble"** Caitlin added.

 **"I see. If the DA would have been here, then Joe might have been out with one of those … shapeshifters. Really? An alien invasion?"** David looked like he wanted to raise his voice, but realizing what he was talking about he kept the sound down to a minimum.

 **"That is a supposition, but Kara has stories from her home planet about these aliens. They went there a long time ago and their patterns didn't change. However, being as advanced as they were, the Kryptonians managed to drive them away, but not before losing all the people that were initially taken in for … testing"** Barry continued telling what he knew.

 **"Why tell me now? I assume you are quite aware that I cannot do anything until that actually happens. Which I hope to god it will not"** the Captain voiced.

 **"We're scrambling to get your armors ready, we have also been working on a prototype weapon that could probably badly hurt if not kill a Dominator out right. STAR isn't a weapons facility, but sometimes even we have to go over what we believe. We want you to know because at some point, this will happen. I don't think there is a way to stop them from going on with their plans. You are the chief of police here and while some people would not give you this information, we will. You have to be prepared for what is going to happen. Even if you cannot do anything about the actual aliens, you can make sure people stay safe. You have your detectives out there helping people and we and our friends will try to keep the aliens off their backs so they can do their jobs"** Caitlin imparted her thinking.

 **"I'm glad you told me. I'll start preparations as soon as I can, under the guise of normal police exercises. I assume nobody knows about all of this except Eddie and Joe?"** he inquired.

 **"Yes, they know because they were there when we brought in the captured alien and to be fair they do help us with most of the stuff related to the police when it comes to the Labs. There are a few select people that know, but none you have direct contact with, so consider this top secret for now and don't share anything with anyone except those two"** Barry made his point

 **"So you have any sort of plan to stop them?"** the question came.

 **"Not as of yet. The race of the alien that we have in the Pipeline is different of that of a Dominator. We have come up with things to let the shapeshifters let themselves be known to us. A compound that can force their cells to shift back into their original form. However, regarding the Dominators we don't really have that much. Everything right now is a work in progress"** Caitlin replied to his question

 **"If there is anything I can do, let me know. Also, if you can since you gave me this info, try to keep me in the loop if anything major changes. I would like to be able to use the resources at my disposal as efficiently as possible when it comes to saving and protecting human lives"** David said with a determined tone.

 **"All right. We will do that. Thank you for your time and we will either tell Joe or call you directly when the armors that the CCPD ordered are ready for delivery. With everything that we found out, we are trying to get them out as soon as possible"** The two speedsters got up and walked toward the door

 **"Take care. I hope what you`re saying doesn't come to pass, or else we will have a lot of issues in the future"** he told them with a face that tried to hide fear, but didn't manage quite that well.

 **"We are doing all we can to stop this. Maybe even cut them off before they reach the planet, but as you know … there is only so much that we can do on our own"** Caitlin replied with a bit of ire in her voice.

The two speedsters returned to STAR labs to spend some more time with their son. Bette and Cisco went out for food, Barry noticing that the two had a some time to catch up on, seeing how the engineer had been in the lab for the better part of a week.

Ever since the two had found out that they had the power to see through each other's eyes when needed, they wanted to learn how to use that power effectively, the problem was it didn't seem to respond to any sort of normal stimuli and its activation was as random as ever. At first they thought it would be through focused thought, and while that worked while Barry had lost his sight, after it started to fizzle sometimes.

They had trained almost every day in trying to see if they could master that power, but its trigger seemed as far as ever. There were some problems with it even, sometimes the activation would be so random that the speedsters would get glimpses of each other's vision while blinking, or while resting their eyes. While that never presented a problem, the fact that it was still an unknown factor bothered them, from a scientific point of view, while also thrilling them to the possibility of a new discovery, even if they were that discovery. Cisco came into the Cortex, his expression told the two that something was wrong.

 **"Cisco, what's with the face?"** Caitlin looked at the engineer who made a grimace.

 **"I just checked to see if everything was all right with the people in the pipeline, Lenny and Mick are no longer there"** He said with an annoyed tone

 **"Wait, what? How could they have escaped?"** Barry almost yelled.

 **"I don't know, and the cameras inside the lab did not pick up absolutely anything abnormal in their cells except a faint electrical signature"** the answer came

 **"What type of electrical signature?"** Caitlin interjected.

 **"The type of signature that every material will have for a short while … after a speedster phases through it"** the couple could see the engineer was frustrated.

 **"Wait, so you`re telling us that an unknown speedster came in the labs, avoided every camera that there was, phased through the walls of the cells and took Mick and Lenny?"** Barry wanted to make sure he understood what the engineer was saying.

 **"That's how it looks"** the answer came **"What I don't understand is which speedster? Beside you two, older Barry and obviously Alex, the DNA coding is meant to not ignore any other person. The moment one would come into the lab they would get their speed sapped. I fail to see how that could have happened. I checked the nanite dispersal system, I checked the nanites themselves and their programming, everything is in order. Yet, those two are gone"**

 **"I'm guessing this was Lenny's plan all along. No wonder he told us that him getting captured along with Mick is the way that it was supposed to happen"** Barry thought out loud **"Snart, what are you planning?"**

The two speedsters and Cisco remained to think about what the Future Cold's escape could mean, Barry and Caitlin sharing with the engineer what he had told them the day he was captured. Nothing made sense, there was too little information for them to draw an accurate conclusion.


End file.
